The Second Housemaid
by philcollins
Summary: AU. Tom Crawley is the drunken, useless, youngest son to the Earl of Grantham. Sybil Branson is the Irish immigrant second housemaid at Downton Abbey. A story of role reversal that will oh so loosely follow the gist of the DA we know. Tom/Sybil.
1. Master and Servant

1913

Sybil carries her bucket and broom to the next bedroom on the list Anna gave her, the youngest Mr. Crawley's room. She has yet to see the youngest Crawley, even though he's apparently living here and not away at university or in town or having a world tour of some kind. But she's hardly seen any of the Crawley family, really, since coming to work at Downton Abbey. She glimpsed Lord Robert once as she scurried for the servant's door in the main hall, endeavoring to make herself invisible to him. The Countess came down to the kitchens one afternoon looking for Mrs. Hughes. Most unusual. Perhaps it's because the Countess is American. Well, despite that, she certainly _looked_ like a very well bred and fine lady, to Sybil's eye. The next oldest son, Matthew, she delivered a note to on her first day here. He gave the impression of being a kind man, not at all uppity, saying thank you in a rather sincere way as she proffered the note. And the oldest of the three Crawley children, the oldest son Patrick, well...

Sybil has no love for the aristocracy in a general way, an archaic and divisive institution in her opinion, and no love for employers she's hardly seen and doesn't know, but one can't help feel for a family when something so tragic happens. The oldest son, the future Earl of Grantham, drowned in the Titanic sinking. Unimaginable. She'd of course heard of the sinking when it happened and could hardly comprehend it then, but to eventually end up working in the home of one of the victims made it so much more _real_.

It's been months and months since the sinking, the better part of a year, but the spectre of the tragedy still seems to settle over the servants from time to time, she's noticed. She can only imagine how much heavier it weighs on the Crawleys themselves. They're aristocrats, yes, but they're also human beings, a mother and father and brothers. If she lost one of her own two older sisters... She feels for the younger Crawley brothers, she really does. Even if she doesn't know them.

Sybil closes the door gently and sets her bucket by the hearth. The room is warm from the morning fire but dim and gloomy and stale. She throws up the sashes to air it out. The cool air still smells of the heavy rain that fell last night. Her shoes are silent on the thick rug as she crosses the room to turn down the bedclothes and air those out, too, while she sweeps the rug and sweeps out the hearth. But as she grabs the top hem of the blanket, just as she's about to yank it down, she gets the scare of her young life when a hand shoots out of the depths and grabs her wrist tight, stopping her.

"What are you doing?" a gruff voice demands from under the covers. A head emerges, dark blonde hair, almost brown, tousled and unruly, a pleasantly handsome face creased with sleep, dark blue eyes fierce and hard from the unwelcome disturbance she's provided. This must be the youngest Crawley. Young master Tom.

"I'm-I'm sorry, sir," she manages to stutter, trying to take back her wrist and get out of there. Tom Crawley doesn't let her go, however, keeping her wrist wrapped in his large hand even as he sits up in bed. The covers fall away and all she sees is the broad, bare expanse of his smooth chest. Extremely disconcerting. She averts her eyes. Her face is getting red, she knows. "I had no idea you were still... I thought you were at breakfast, sir."

He glares at her. "Well I'm not at breakfast. You should've known."

She resists asking _how_ she should know his whereabouts if no one bloody tells her the youngest son is still lying in at _ten in the morning_ rather than being at breakfast (or at _university_, or at a job of some sort, heaven forbid) like a normal, if over-privileged, man. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I'll go."

He's silent and still doesn't let her go. He pulls on her even, pulling her close, pulling her off balance. She'll fall on him if she doesn't brace herself, but she can't touch his bare chest, so she braces herself with her knee, pressing it into the mattress. But she's still too close. He radiates heat and his breath smells stale, like last night's alcohol. Her father's breath used to smell like this. Every man she ever knew growing up in Dublin had breath like this far, far too often.

He keeps pulling on her, trying to pull her down to him, but she resists, straining, trying to turn her wrist from his grip, turning her face away from his. "Please, sir," she begs quietly, firmly. But inside she's quaking, scared. She hasn't been a housemaid for very long, this is only her second job, but she's certainly heard stories and warnings from other servants about how men of the house can take liberties with their willing or unwilling female servants. Shocking and salacious and disturbing and terrible stories. "Please let me go."

"Give me a kiss first," Tom Crawley demands.

She gasps and pulls away from him, as hard as she can. But he's strong. "Let me go or I'll scream," she warns. "I'll tell—"

"Who will you tell?" Tom Crawley challenges. "Who's going to believe you? Miss Sybil Branson from Dublin. I know all about you. Does that surprise you, that the wastrel, drunken, useless youngest son with no fortune knows anything about _you_? I make it my business to suss out the fresh talent here. You worked as a second maid in the small house of some minor and penniless duchess in the Back-of-Nowhere, Scotland. They gave you a good reference when the old bag bit it, but no one here knows you, you're just poor Irish trash, a nobody from nothing. And I'm your master. I'll just deny anything you say. And they'll believe me, not you. I'll make sure you get sacked and leave with no reference and a very bad reputation. You _need_ this job. You need to send money home to your poor, widowed mother. So what choice do you have but to do what I want, Miss Branson?"

Everything he says about her is true. No one would believe her. She knows it. Still, she looks him right in the eye and answers, "Go to hell," refusing to relent. His breath is hot on her skin and there's the promise of violence in his eyes. She feels his other hand grab her free arm, and her whole body shakes with the effort of holding herself away from his body at this awkward angle. He could easily pull her down onto the bed. She hasn't cut her nails in a few days - she'll draw his blood, if need be; he'll not take her quietly. She'll make him mark her and she'll mark him back.

Suddenly, he's pushing her away, letting her go, and she stumbles back on the rug. "I probably will at that, Miss Branson," he mutters, turning away and sinking back onto the mattress. "Go on, get out of here."

But she hardly hears him because she's already grabbing her pail and broom and running from the room, blood thudding in her ears and hot angry tears blinding her eyes. What an idiot she was for giving an ounce of her compassion and sympathy to Tom Crawley, or to any of them for that matter. She doesn't need to _know_ these people to know she's right to hate them lock, stock, and barrel, and the sooner she gets away from Downton Abbey, the better. She has to get out of this awful place. She's just not yet sure _how_.

* * *

TBC.


	2. Portrait of a Young Aristocrat

There's no one to tell in the end, Sybil decides. Nothing actually happened, except that Tom Crawley proved himself to be an ass. And she's new here, she doesn't want to make trouble. She knows that any sort of fraternizing on the part of female staff is grounds for instant dismissal and she really does need this job.

For now.

She has dreams and goals and plans. She won't be a housemaid forever, that's for sure.

However, she cannot help but be angry. At Tom Crawley and at this place for breeding working conditions where abuse and harassment of employees is tacitly tolerated. And angry at herself, angry that she won't speak up for her rights as a worker. To be honest, though, she's scared of him, too. Rightfully so. But worse than that, there's a feeling she can't shake, despite it having no earthly business residing in her soul – _shame_. She's ashamed of the whole incident as though it was her own fault, as though she brought it on herself by making some mistake, as though she should've known better somehow. That's what makes her most angry.

She quietly and indirectly tries to discover whether any of the other maids have been mistreated or attacked by Tom Crawley. Perhaps if she had some corroboration, she could speak out. But Gwen, the third housemaid, has stars in her eyes when she speaks of Tom Crawley; the scullery maids fall into blushing giggle fits when Sybil brings him up; one of the kitchen maids makes it plain in a low, cold, whispered threat that Sybil is to _stay away_ from Tom Crawley but not, Sybil understands, for the safety of her virtue, rather for the safety of her eyes lest the kitchen maid scratch them out. Only Anna, sensible and honest and virtuous Anna, is immune to his charms, it seems, admitting that he can be a "handful" and has fallen into a somewhat disreputable state after the death of his brother. "But he didn't used to be like he is now," Anna explains, equivocating. "He used to be a very jolly and very likeable young man. A favorite amongst the staff. It's sad to see him brought so low."

Perhaps not so entirely immune to his charms.

She overhears a few snatches of conversation as she goes about her business which would indicate Mr. Crawley's own family isn't quite as generous as Anna. She hears the man's own father use words like "drunken layabout"and "bring shame on us all" and "carousing with unsavory sorts". Maybe she should go to Lord Crawley with her complaints after all!

She tries to swap duties with Gwen so as to avoid going back into Mr. Crawley's chamber, but Mrs. Hughes demands to know why the second housemaid wants to demote herself to third housemaid. Sybil can't give an explanation and she can't afford the demotion, so she has no choice but to enter the lion's den again. But she's careful to be completely silent when lighting his fire in the early mornings so he won't know she's there, her ears tuned to the sound of his breathing, listening for sounds of rousing and always hoping he got very drunk the night before. And she's careful to determine his exact whereabouts before going in to clean later in the morning, often forced to wait until the afternoon when he's finally dragged himself out of bed for luncheon and disappeared into the village or into Ripon on some business, likely of an intemperate nature.

Early one morning, she's crouched at the hearth as usual, just getting the fire to catch, feeding it, making it grow, willing the wood not to pop so damn loud, when a sudden and furious rustle of sheets from the bed alerts her, has her on her feet instantly and ready to reach for the fireplace poker. A figure launches from under the covers and out of bed. It's him, she knows, coming for her like a lust-crazed maniac. The brass of the poker touches her hand. The figure crouches like a feral beast and plucks something off the floor, scurrying for the door. Sybil's path is blocked now. She glimpses bare skin in the dim glow of the fire, smooth and pale skin. He's _naked_.

But then the fire catches roundness, slenderness, curves.

It's a _woman_, she realizes with more shock than if it were he and intent on her downfall.

Sybil can't see the woman's – or girl's – face in the dim light. Who on earth could it be? And then the woman has passed, hiding in the alcove by the door. Sybil stays frozen, listening to the hurried rustle of clothes being pulled on and the door opening, then shutting, the click of the knob like a shot in the night to Sybil's ears.

The shock and her quick breath and blood distracts and deafens her so that she's caught off guard again when she realizes the owner of the room is up now, too, on the far side of the bed, his back turned, grunting and taking a few stumbling steps toward the corner of the room. Still Sybil stays frozen, not wanting to draw attention to herself, playing invisible, even though she can now clearly see Mr. Crawley is completely naked. The firelight catches the broad plane of his back, strong and finely-shaped, tapering down to his round, curved backside, perfectly smooth and firm. She stares, completely immobilized, completely shocked, breathless. She should run.

Especially when she hears – and, frankly, smells - the strong stream of his piss hitting the chamber pot. He groans loud and long and sighs.

But Sybil has to assume by this he doesn't know she's in the room. And she's still entirely loath to give herself away, frightened of what could happen if she does. She waits, crouching down again, hiding. She's going to have to empty the damn pot anyway.

He finally stops and she hears him shuffle back to the bed. Thankfully, she can't see him from here; she doesn't need any more shocks. The bedclothes rustle, skin sliding over the fine cotton. God almighty, how long will she have to wait until he's asleep so she can sneak over there—

"Good morning, Miss Sybil," Mr. Tom grumbles, freezing her blood. Another shock after all. How on earth— "Either take the pot and get out, or remove your clothes and take the other one's place."

When she picks up the pot of his stinking urine, she longs to dump it over his head. She makes the mistake of glancing his way, expecting to find his eyes on her, shining in the near-dark and laughing at her. But instead she finds his eyes shut and face buried in his feather pillow, already falling back to sleep, unconcerned if she stays or goes. She goes.

* * *

TBC.


	3. Revolutionary

Her life gets significantly easier when Tom Crawley departs Downton Abbey, heading to London and points elsewhere for an indeterminate amount of time to do...whatever it is feckless, boorish young gentlemen do with all their responsibility-free time. Drink and whore and gamble and go to the races, is what Sybil assumes. Her whole being feels lighter with him gone. She even has time to take her afternoon break and get some mending done, now she's not usually spending that time cleaning Mr. Tom's room.

She's doing said mending one afternoon, trying not to think about the day Mr. Tom returns and ruins it all, when Mr. Carson comes in with the post. "Gwen, this came for you," Mr. Carson announces, handing Sybil a thick envelope to pass along down the table to Gwen.

"Who's that from, eh? Your secret sweetheart?" Thomas Barrow teases from the end of the table.

"Was there anything else for me, Mr. Carson?" Gwen asks, apparently unsatisfied with the envelope.

Sybil thinks someone could write an encyclopedia about the thousand-and-one expressions Mr. Carson's face is capable of. This one speaks volumes. "That the third housemaid should get any post in a _year_ is rare enough, Gwen. Don't get above yourself."

"Yes, sir."

In fact, Sybil knows her roommate has been taking a secretarial training course via correspondence. Whatever post she's looking for must have to do with that. Sybil is a little envious of Gwen; she's doing what Sybil so far hasn't been able to – start to make an escape route for herself. She wants to do what Gwen's doing, but her mother's been sick and every extra farthing goes to Ireland to help her sisters care for mama.

On her half days or afternoons off, she goes to the village or into Ripon for any political rallies that might be on. There was even a lady speaker once, making the case for the women's vote. It was entirely thrilling. Sybil shook the woman's hand when she came down from the speaker's step. And with the occasion of the by-election approaching, Sybil decides she simply has to be at the announcement of the count, representing her sex in presence if not in voice.

Thus, on the morning of the count, she wakes up with a very bad "sore throat" and once everyone is at their morning's work, she makes her escape.

But upon arriving, Sybil realizes with a little alarm that this isn't like any of the rallies she's attended – it seems like the volume and intensity are turned way, way up. And there are absolutely no women to be seen. She begins to doubt herself. She's jostled and squashed in the heaving throng, but she isn't going to be intimidated. She wants to _vote_ someday, by God, and if this is what it's all about, then she can get right down in it as well as any man.

However, when two strong hands clamp around her arms above the elbow, panic immediately swells within her and she stiffens, ready to stamp on some feet with her low heel if necessary.

"Don't worry," a voice behind her, close to her ear, says. "It's only me, Miss Sybil."

And she knows, her guts sinking – it's Tom Crawley. _Only_. The one man on earth who unnerves her completely and entirely. _Only him_.

She can smell his shaving soap and the freshness of his shirt. No alcohol staleness, she notes. His hands are still on her, holding her against his solid chest, and damn her eyes, she can't help but remember how his solid chest and _other _solidparts of his body looked without clothes! Horrible man.

She curses to herself but to him says politely, "I didn't know you were back, Mr. Crawley."

"Just got in."

"Welcome home, sir. I hope you had a pleasant trip."

"I didn't know you were political. A revolutionary housemaid. It seems a stretch."

"I'm not a revolutionary, sir," she disagrees, hoping to come over as demure, not a troublemaker.

But Tom seems to sense that's not her whole answer, prompting, giving her elbow a brief squeeze, "We're not in the house. You can speak openly with me here."

Fine then. "I'm not a revolutionary, I'm a suffragette."

"And the difference being?"

"I don't think it's a _revolutionary_ idea that women be treated as having minds of their own, be treated as equals, be given a voice, be full citizens of the country where they live. It just seems _fair_. In my opinion. Sir."

She expects he'll mock her somehow or play his old "I'm the master, you're not equal" card, despite his claims of being able to speak freely with him. He's still lord and master and jackass. But instead he asks, surprising her, "So what's your opinion of all this, then, Sybil? Who do you think will win?"

"Will win, or _should_ win, sir?" And when she turns her head to look at him, he's smiling at her, his big blue eyes shining bright. But she gets the impression he's not laughing at her, oddly enough. There's something almost warm in his face. He should smile more often. And his hands, they don't seem so vice-like now, not controlling her but rather...protective. Keeping her from being jostled. Like he's a rock in a river protecting her from getting swept away.

But suddenly they're both rocked off their feet by the swell of men, a burst of shouts going up on the other side of the courtyard, the whole throng surging back. Something's happening.

"A fight," Mr. Crawley answers her unasked question. "We should go, Miss Branson."

"You can go, if you like, sir. I'll be alright." That may have been more convincing if a bottle hadn't just sailed right over their heads.

"It's not safe," he insists, tugging on her arms. "Come along!"

She doesn't want to go, just to be ornery, but grudgingly admits he might be right. He grabs her hand, weaving their fingers together, a firm hold, his skin warm through her thin glove. She finds herself clutching his sleeve as they try to push through the crowd. She can't see where they're going. There's another great surge and she feels like she's in the ocean – she loses her grip on him and the wave pulls them apart, carries her away from him.

She thinks she hears him call her name and she tries to keep sight of his panicked face in the crowd but can't. Her feet leave the ground and she's no longer in control of her own body, at the mercy of a crowd, panicking. And then there's nothing holding her up and she's weightless, stony pavers suddenly smacking her tailbone, a sharp crack in her head—

* * *

She's moving. Rattling and jostling and bumping. She opens her eyes. She shouldn't have – her vision is a blur, things moving by way too quickly. She shuts her eyes again, her stomach heaving. She's going to be sick. She must make some noise because it prompts someone nearby to say, "We're almost to the hospital, Sybil. You're in my motor car. You'll be alright, my girl."

It's taking all her energy not to vomit, she has none left to make sense of anything else. She wills the jostling to stop and it seems an eternity before it does. But then she's moving again, being lifted up easily. Shaving soap and clean linen. The smells are familiar and seem to calm her stomach. Strong arms. A rock in a river. Hot skin pressed against her face. A soothing voice very close, very quiet, repeating calmly. You'll be alright, you're alright, don't you worry, Miss Sybil, darling girl. She's in the arms of Tom Crawley, the man she loathes.

* * *

"Dr. Clarkson said I'm perfectly capable of walking, sir, thank you," she protests crisply, feeling absolutely ridiculous.

"Capable, yes. Allowed, no."

So she's forced to be carried by Tom from his automobile to the back entrance of Downton, with each and every one of her co-workers, as well as some of his family, watching. Her hair is all undone and down and there's nothing she can do about it - she must look like a ravaged wild woman!

But the humiliation doesn't end at the door. He carries her inside and down the steps, past Mrs. Hughes' parlor, past Mr. Carson's office, past the kitchens and the pantry, every one trailing behind them, watching a master of the house carry the second housemaid like his newly wed bride. She can't bear the staring and the shame, hiding her face in Tom Crawley's neck.

When they get to the servants' stairs, she struggles again. This has to stop. He is not going to carry her up four flights of stairs. "I can manage the stairs, Mr. Crawley, please!"

"Absolutely not. Mrs. Hughes, Sybil has tomorrow off, is that understood? And she can't sleep tonight, she's had a concussion, so someone has to sit up with her, can that be arranged?"

"Yes, Mr. Crawley, of course," she hears Mrs. Hughes answer, sounding bewildered.

Her humiliation is complete only when he's entered her shared bedroom in the attic and set her down gently on her narrow bed. Good lord, her nightgown is hanging off the back of her chair – he's seeing her ruddy nightgown!

She sits stretched out on the bed, staring at her clasped hands, while he stands over her, silent, breathing hard. Is he waiting for her to thank him? Thank him for humiliating her? Thank him for rescuing her? Both? "Thank you, sir," she says quietly, politely, hoping he'll get out of her room immediately.

"Yes, well." He clears his throat, like he's coming back to his usual dour self and realizing the ridiculous spectacle they just made. "Good night, Sybil."

And finally he's gone. But Mrs. Hughes and Gwen and Anna and even Miss O'Brien are standing at the foot of her bed, question marks where their faces should be. "Well, Miss Branson? Do you want to explain what all that was about? And where you've been all day?"

* * *

She feels bad. Anna and Gwen work hard enough already and today must cover her duties, too. Gwen didn't sleep all night, sitting up with her in their shared room per Tom Crawley's instructions, reading to her, showing her how her to write shorthand, and now the poor girl is positively dragging and had managed to spill mop water all over her apron and dress in her tiredness. From the comfort of her bed, Sybil watches Gwen change her clothes. Sybil apologizes for the nineteenth time in the space of five minutes.

Gwen waves her off. "Don't worry about it, Sybil, my goodness. You're injured! So stop fretting."

"Well, I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Fair enough. Now then, I'll have Daisy or someone bring you tea in a while. You just go back to sleep now!"

Sybil tries to do as instructed, just about succeeding, dozing, when a knock at the door rouses her. It must be the tea. She calls out sleepily, still buried in her pillow, and she hears the door open.

"Are you decent, Miss Sybil?" Her eyes fly open and she sits up like a shot, clutching the blanket to her chest, her mouth clutching for speech as she watches Tom Crawley walk in. "Because even if you aren't—"

"I'm not!"

"-I'm still coming in," he finishes, shutting the door behind him.

"I'm-I'm in my nightgown, Mr. Crawley!" she sputters, as though that's the worst of it.

"Nothing I haven't seen before."

"I'm-I'm— You shouldn't be in here, sir. It's-it's-"

He pulls a chair to her bedside and sits. "Don't worry, I know how to get up here without being seen. And how to get away without being seen, too." He leans back and gives her a cheeky grin. "I've been doing it since I was fourteen." He's so lewd and shocking and inappropriate and boyish when he grins like that and funny in a way and confusing and maddening. She clutches her blanket higher. "Oh don't worry, I'm not here for any funny business. I came to see how you are today. You're looking well."

She looks a mess, her hair in an unruly braid, her face unwashed. "I'm feeling very well, sir."

"Good. And I came to tell you that my father wants to sack you."

She'd been expecting this all night, in a way, but it still makes her breath catch. "I see. Without a reference, I assume?"

"No reference, that's correct." Her chest tightens painfully. "Because you don't need one."

"But I—"

"You're not going anywhere."

Now she has no idea what's happening.

"I convinced him not to let you go, Sybil. Your place is secure."

"Oh." And she should be grateful, she knows. But she can't help but wonder _why_ he's done this. So that she _would_ be grateful to him, _owe_ him? Be in his debt? A debt he would expect to collect from her at some point? She can easily imagine how he'd expect payment. Her voice is tight and small when she says, "Thank you, Mr. Crawley. You have my sincere thanks. But..."

"But what?"

She puts on a brave face, looking straight at him. "But if you are expecting some form of reciprocity from me, beyond the sincerity in my heart, which I've expressed to you verbally, perhaps it would be better if I did leave."

He's very still, his face unreadable, but she knows he understands her meaning. There's very little to stop him taking his payment now. If she screamed, likely no one would hear her. "And what would you do if you did leave?" he asks.

She rolls her eyes, so tired of being threatened by him, and by the hold money has over her. "Survive," she bites out.

Tom holds up his hands. "No, no. I'm sorry, I'm not making myself clear. What would you do if you left here to go do something else? What would you _like_ to do, is what I really mean. I feel certain your life's ambition is not to be a housemaid."

"There's nothing wrong with being a housemaid."

"Of course not. Except I would be very sad to hear you're still in service in five years' time. It would disappoint me."

"Why?"

"Because you're smarter than that, clearly. Would you want to be a secretary, perhaps? A nurse? A shop girl?" He throws up his hand dramatically. "An actress. That's it, isn't it?"

She bows her head, hiding a smile from him. "A secretary, at first," she admits finally. "But if I could, I'd be a journalist. I'd write about politics."

He smiles. "Naturally. Which reminds me." He reaches into his suit coat, pulling out some folded papers. "I brought these pamphlets for you. Some light reading."

She takes them, surprised, shuffling through them. The Woman's Liberty Bell. New Era. Why the Women of Britain Want the Vote. Ireland Unfree. Marxism For Our Times. Good god, if anyone found these in her possession... "So you _are_ trying to get me sacked, sir."

He laughs, standing up, putting the chair back in its place. He seems about to leave, but then he stops, coming back to her bedside. He crouches down so that he's not looming over her but instead looking up at her. "Miss Branson. I know you think I'm lewd and crude and brutish, and I am when I'm drunk, when I'm hung over, even when I'm neither. I'm not much good at being a gentleman. But I hope you'll believe me when I say you have nothing to fear from me."

The first time she met him, he threatened her and almost attacked her. And every time she's encountered him since, he's been the most puzzling, alarming person she's ever met. But looking down at his face, so boyish and earnest, his big eyes so liquid and expressive and imploring, his forehead wrinkled with such concern and hope, she finds herself unable to say anything but a soft, "I do."

"Good. Good."

She can't remember when she stopped clutching her blankets, but she has and his hand finds one of hers. She's not wearing gloves this time. Their palms make a soft rasping sound, loud in the silent room, as he slides her hand into his, taking it, holding it. She thinks he might kiss her hand and, though she said she doesn't fear him, she does fear that, fears the fluttering it puts in her belly, and fears she might have some understanding of why her female co-workers get hearts in their eyes when mentioning Mr. Tom Crawley.

The bedroom door opens. "Sybil? Are you awake—"

Tom Crawley stands up so fast he almost loses his balance, stumbling away from her bed. Gwen, carrying a small tea tray, is rooted in place at the door, staring at them, her eyes huge. Sybil is equally frozen, equally discomposed. It's Gwen who speaks first, trying to back out of the room as she does. "Oh. I'm sorry, sir—"

"I was checking in on our patient, making sure she didn't die in the night," Tom offers.

"I see. You could've asked Thomas or Mr. Carson for a report, sir," Gwen says.

"Yes. Quite right. Apologies for the invasion, ladies. Good morning."

So much for sneaking away unseen. She and Gwen stare after him as he makes a hasty escape, and she laughs, trying to make light of the situation, of the ridiculousness of the man, hoping Gwen joins in, hoping she doesn't go running off to Mrs. Hughes to get her in trouble. "Can you believe the impudence? Coming into the female servants' quarters! I should report him to Mrs. Hughes, not that it'd do much good," Sybil tries, eager to derail the problem ahead of it building up steam.

But when Gwen sets the tea tray down on the table by her bed, the force makes the china clatter and her eyes are as fiery as her hair. And suddenly Sybil has an insight, clear as day: it was Gwen she saw scampering out of Tom Crawley's bed that early morning months ago.

* * *

TBC.


	4. Intercourse

She knew this would happen. Inevitable. The moment Tom Crawley enters her life again, it gets immediately complicated.

Gwen's angry at her. Sybil wants to be a good friend, convince Gwen to respect herself more and not let Tom Crawley get her into the kind of trouble she can't get out of, but Gwen won't talk to her at all. All the scullery maids and kitchen maids hate her, too, and spill tea on her apron because of that ridiculous parade they made through the downstairs, as though she planned that whole thing, as though she was flaunting something torrid. Even Mrs. Hughes seems to hate her because she can't sack her. Anna's still nice, at least, but far too busy to be a friend.

Sybil suddenly finds herself in a very lonely place.

It's not fair. It's gossipy and petty and ridiculous. It's the sort of behavior she loathes in her own sex - letting men divide them and turn them against one another.

The problem is Tom's the only person who _will_ talk to her nowadays. When she comes to his chamber to light his morning fire, he talks to her. When she's back there to clean his room later, he shows up, very conveniently, and talks to her. The problem is she doesn't _want_ to talk to him. He's bedding her friends – _co-workers_ - using them shamelessly. It's repugnant. He disgusts her.

But the _other_ problem is she has to pretend to be polite to him because he saved her from getting sacked.

The _other_ other problem is that the things he says she usually finds herself agreeing with.

"Did you have a chance to read any of those pamphlets I gave you? What'd you think of the one on Marxism? I'm not as extreme as that, are you? But don't you agree the time of the czars is at an end? Kings and queens and monarchs, they're so outmoded, archaic. The modern kings are the captains of industry. Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and Carnegie and Ford – he's the greatest of that lot. Men like them, women like Susan Anthony, women like _you_, Sybil, you're the ones shaping the future, don't you see? All these kings and czars and earls are trying to preserve the past, like the world is a specimen in a jar."

"Even your father?" she asks, surprised.

"Especially him."

Another morning, he surprises with this confession. "I envy you, knowing where you want to go in your life. I don't know what I want. I don't know who I am. Other than a disappointment to my family." She doesn't say what she thinks – that he'd be less of a disappointment if he went to university, got a job, stopped bedding the help. "If I'm honest, all I really want to do is fix engines and drive motor cars. Why can't I just do that?"

"Like Pratt? A _chauffeur_?"

"There's nothing wrong with being a chauffeur. Sounds like fun to me. Simple. Uncomplicated. Tom Crawley, chauffeur." He gives her a formal bow. He's only wearing pajama bottoms at the time. "At your service, m'lady." She laughs without meaning to.

Politics and religion and books and her upbringing in Ireland and his expulsion from university (_two_ universities) and tomorrow's possibilities and yesterday's papers and he's smart and well-read and funny (if lewd) and she'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the attention because no one has ever paid attention to her in her whole life and for a few minutes a day they make their own secret world and she starts to forget to find him repugnant and disgusting and stops pretending to be nice to him and starts to look forward to seeing him and it's complicated and...nice.

* * *

Things carry on like that as the year ends and 1914 begins, as winter drags on and spring starts to peep out from around the corner.

He waves a flier in her face one late-March morning. "Are you interested in going to this rally next week in Thirsk?"

"Yes, I should say so."

"Despite getting a concussion at the last political event you attended?"

"Even so. If I can get the afternoon. I'm due one." She's actually due two afternoons off – the last time she was to have one, Mrs. Hughes took it away so one of the scullery maids could go see a sick sister. Sybil knows damn well that maid doesn't have any siblings, but what could she do?

"I'll make sure you get it off—"

Nooooo no no. "That's kind, sir, but not necessary. I'm sure it won't be a problem."

"Then we'll go together, I'll take you in my car."

Not a good idea. "I can get the bus in the village."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Well she's not being ridiculous. "It might be...difficult for me, sir."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"If anyone here should see me riding with you," she says as directly as she can manage.

"Has someone been giving you grief? Who? Tell me."

That's the very last thing she needs. "No one, sir."

"Then what is the problem?"

He's not this obtuse, she knows he's not. "_Sir. _Please."

"Well to hell with what anyone else thinks! What does it matter? We're not doing anything wrong." This is where their secret world butts up against the real one and falls to pieces. It would be better if they stayed apart. He huffs and puffs, waiting for an answer, but she has none. He relents. "Fine, have it your way. I'll pick you up en route to the village. Where no one will see. How's that?"

It doesn't sound like "her" way at all. It sounds like sneaking around. It sounds like a whole afternoon out with her employer's son. It sounds like a mistake and a risk.

* * *

The day is fine when they go to Thirsk so the top is down on his car. Her hat is pinned but she holds onto it because he drives so very fast. Still, she's not concussed this time, so she can actually enjoy the ride, more or less, though she doesn't want to enjoy it _too_ much, or let Tom see her enjoying it too much. And the rally is a ripper, entirely interesting, though Tom makes them stand at the back near the exit in case danger crops up again. At least he has no excuses for putting his hands on her this time. And if his hand does keep touching hers, brushing and tangling, it's only because they're standing so close, crammed together by the crowd.

"Do you have to report to your post this evening, Miss Sybil?" he asks when the rally lets out.

"No, sir. I'm back on duty tomorrow morning. To light your fire."

"And you best be there on time, miss!" he says, winking at her. "I don't know about you but I'm starving, and I need a pint."

"I don't have much more than my bus fare," she protests.

"Then you'll have to sit there for hours watching me eat."

"Or I could take the bus back to the village. It's right over there," she says, pointing across the street to the omnibus pulling up to the stop.

Aha, he hadn't thought of that, had he! He loses some of that self-satisfied, clever-boots look on his face. "So you were prepared to go the whole afternoon without eating? Starving yourself? What sort of plan is that? Now come along with me. As my guest." He offers her his arm. She hesitates. The bus is loading, it won't be there much longer. "Please, Sybil?"

Which is how they end up at the Golden Fleece eating meat pies and pea soup and drinking lager. And whisky. And discussing whether Mary Richardson's slashing of the Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery was valid protest or poorly thought out vandalism lacking a more easily comprehended central metaphor. And sharing a cigarette.

She watches his throat move as he drains his glass. She remembers how his skin there smells, how warm his neck is. The room is over-heated and Tom takes off his coat and loosens his tie, rolls up his sleeves to his elbows. The beer, whisky, and smoke must really be getting to her head because the sight of him doing this routine rivets her completely, makes her much, much warmer all over. It's ridiculous considering the number of times she's seen him without any shirt on at all. His eyes are dark in here but dancing, watching her watch him. He plucks the cigarette from between her fingers and puts it between his moist lips.

"They usually have a bit of music in here at night," he says, breathing out the smoke. "Shame they don't tonight. We could've had a dance."

"Do you come here often, then? Do you bring girls here?" The whisky makes her say that.

"Sometimes, Miss Sybil, sometimes. Are you jealous?"

"What's to be jealous of?"

"Absolutely nothing, believe me."

"Do you dance with them?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm very glad the band took tonight off."

* * *

It's dark and late when they're finally back on the road to Downton. The drink has made her sleepy and soft around the edges, and it's minimizing the alarm of pesky thoughts like, "This is all a little too Tess of the D'urbervilles, isn't it? He could pull this car off the road and do anything he likes to me," and also, "Well Thomas Barrow will have served at table tonight and seen that Mr. Crawley wasn't at dinner, and then report that to everyone downstairs and then they'll all have put it together that Mr. Crawley must be out with me and I'll never have a moment's peace again."

"Can I ask you something, Sybil?" Tom asks, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Yes, sir?"

"Actually, let me ask you two things. First, will you please call me Tom, not sir?"

She shouldn't. Didn't Alec D'urderville ask the same? "If you like, sir. Tom. Sir Tom." She giggles. Oh god, she's very loose. She tries to temper it. "But only in private." Yes, so very temperate. "And the second thing?"

He's quiet for a while and she can't read his face in the dark. It makes her suddenly very nervous and that's sobering. Finally, he speaks. "Did you read in the paper the other week about the launch of the Brittanic?"

She sits up straighter, much more sober now. How could she miss it? The maiden voyage of the Titanic's sister ship was very big news indeed. But she hadn't mentioned it at the time, not wanting to touch a sensitive topic, not wanting to go near the death of his brother, and Tom certainly hadn't mentioned it then either. "Yes, sir. I did," she says somberly.

"You couldn't get me on that bloody ship for all the whisky in Ireland," Tom comments darkly, drolly. "I suppose you heard about my brother. After...after it happened, I started to dream I was drowning. Every night, the most terrible, vivid dreams. Or I'd dream Patrick was drowning and I couldn't save him. His face was like a ghost's, his mouth was open, he was screaming under the water, silently. His face, I'd see it during the day, all the time. Screaming."

"I'm sorry. Truly."

"When you first met me, I was drowning. I've been drowning for a long time. But every day I know you, Sybil, is a day I'm rescued."

She's rendered speechless by his speech. Her hands twist together in her lap and her guts twist, a tight and nervous feeling. The words are softer, more tentative, than she intends when she finally manages, "Don't play with me, sir. T-Tom. It's not right."

He reaches out to her, finding her hands in her lap, clutching them. His large, warm, strong hand takes one of hers and brings it to his mouth. His lips brush her skin as he says, "I'm not, darling girl," just before he kisses her hand.

* * *

He has a key to the back door of the house. _No one_ has a key to the back door of the house. Except for Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes. "How do you think I've managed to sneak in late all these years?" Tom whispers, leading her inside.

"Ring the front bell?"

"That might defeat the purpose of _sneaking in_."

"Shimmy up the drain pipe, then."

"Why do you think I stole the key in the first place? Nearly broke my neck once shimmying up the drain pipe."

He follows close behind as they climb the servants' staircase silently. She's waiting for him to lay his hand on her hip and try to steer her into the second storey hall, down the corridor, and into his room. He stops on the second storey landing. She stops, too. She won't thank him for the lovely evening he gave her or the tender sentiments. That would be too much like what a girl would say to the man courting her.

"Thank you for taking me to the rally today," she says softly.

Pale moonlight from the small window behind her and inky shadows catch the smooth planes and deep hollows and fine creases of his face, painting it older and more handsome. She waits. He doesn't say anything. She waits still.

"Good night, Tom."

She turns from him to head upstairs to the servants' corridor. But his hand wrapping around her wrist stops her. "Sybil." And he's right there but pulling her close, too, and they come together in a kiss. Her first. His warm, dry, soft lips pluck a kiss from hers sweetly, naturally, almost chastely, _almost_. "Good night," he murmurs against her hot cheek.

And then he's slipped through the door, closing it softly behind him. She stands on the stair, clutching the handrail.

It's just a kiss. Hardly anything at all. A simple, uncomplicated gesture.

* * *

TBC.


	5. Lions and Lambs

This morning she will be..._reserved_. She wasn't reserved last night. She let him _kiss_ her. That cannot happen again. She will go into his chamber right now and be reserved, cool, aloof, professional, do the job for which she is being paid.

But what she doesn't plan for is to see him in his wingback chair before the already-lit fire, feet up on the hassock, dead asleep. His bare chest rises and falls slowly, steadily, glows gold in the firelight and looks so much like a warm place to rest her head. For a moment she wonders if someone has already been in here – Gwen perhaps. But as she stands looking down at him, at his peaceful and boyish face, at his hair sticking up in a few places, she notices a streak of black across his forehead – soot from the fireplace, from making up the fire himself.

Her reserved, aloof, cool professionalism disintegrates and she stands close to him, gently wipes the soot off with her white apron, her fingers pushing back the fringe falling over his forehead. He wakes now, his big, expressive eyes taking her in like he hasn't seen her in years, like he's relieved.

"Putting me out of work, I see," she says of the fire, taking back her hand.

"Are you angry?" he asks.

She doesn't think he's really talking about the fire. "No, I'm impressed you can actually make a fire."

He smiles. "So in the clear, cold light of morning, you haven't decided you actually hate me?"

She stops teasing him. "No."

He snags her hand with his, holding it, drawing it away from her side as though he'll kiss it again, but he doesn't, he just looks at it, examines it, his thumb moving over her red knuckles, her work-chapped skin. She doesn't have the hands of a lady. "When I get back, can I take you out again, Sybil? To the picture show or for a walk some evening. Or to the bookshop in Ripon maybe."

"Back from where?"

"London. I have to go on some business."

"_Business_?"

He laughs like she's insulted him. "What's that, Miss Sybil? Skepticism that I would have business to attend to, given my heretofore idle and discreditable track record? Well I _do_ have business there, actual business. And I should think you'll be proud of me for it."

"I hope I can be."

"So will you come out with me again?"

His thumb stroking her hand makes her want to say, "Yes, yes, yes, I will!" but that's what a scullery maid would say. "We shall see," is what she says instead.

He holds her hand a little tighter, tugs it. "Can I have a kiss before I go?"

She will give him a kiss. She leans down over him, her lips seeking his cheek. But he turns his head, the devil, and their mouths slide together instead. She should've seen that one coming. She doesn't stop him. Their kiss leaves chaste behind, and she doesn't stop him. His hands tug, gently coaxing her down onto his lap. She doesn't stop him. Her hands touch his naked chest, resting there as they kiss, his body radiating like a furnace beneath her. His morning whiskers are rough against her face and his tongue is wet and warm touching her lips and his hands feel huge and omnipresent touching her. She's overwhelmed, she's pressing closer, she's making noises in her throat, she doesn't understand what's come over her, she doesn't want to stop.

He says her name and tips her head back, kisses her chin. They breathe hard and his palm cradles her face, his thumb rubs over her lips. She can't stop looking at his talented mouth. "You should go now, sweet. Or I won't know how to stop."

She doesn't want to stop, god help her.

She's utterly distracted all morning, all day, all night, in her own little world, nearly dropping things, not hearing anyone speak, flushed and tingling all over as she constantly thinks of his heat, his hands, his mouth, his body.

She's in trouble. She's in it deep.

* * *

The day after next, Gwen's gone. Just like that. No warning, no "just so you know, I'm leaving soon", no goodbye. Sybil comes to their room to change into her afternoon uniform and simply finds all signs of Gwen gone, as though she was never there. Even that great heavy dusty case under her bed, the one holding the typewriter she never uses anymore, is gone.

It's the only topic of gossip in the servants' hall at teatime. "She was sacked," Thomas Barrow announces to the whole table, his tongue very free with Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes not there. Sacked? Sybil looks up from her teacup. How can it be true?

"And how do you know that?" Anna asks, voicing Sybil's own doubts.

"Heard Mr. Crawley talking about it to Mr. Carson the other day before he left, didn't I?"

Mr. Bates grunts. "Eavesdropped, you mean."

"For heaven's sake, why would Matthew Crawley want Gwen, of all people, dismissed?" Anna persists.

"Not Matthew Crawley. Tom Crawley," Thomas clarifies.

A thousand needles suddenly prick her skin.

_No_.

Sybil clutches her teacup and with great effort sets it on its saucer without too much clatter.

_He couldn't_.

_He wouldn't._

"It's not true," she says, but it comes out not even a whisper.

Mr. Bates's voice covers her own. "For what reason, though?"

"For what reason do you _think_?" Miss O'Brien asks, her tone snide and heavy with implication. Everyone goes quiet. Sybil's whole body goes ice cold, her head light. She hides her shaking hands under the table. "It doesn't take much imagination to guess why Tom Crawley would want the girl out of the picture, does it?"

No. It doesn't take much imagination at all.

Sybil's face is burning and her throat feels like a closed fist and the tabletop is blurry, scorching tears gathering in her eyes. She won't let them fall. She can't. She _can't_. Not here.

"Well, when lambs lay down with lions, there's chops for dinner every time, eh?" Thomas Barrow comments, finding this all very funny.

A bell rings – her Ladyship's – distracting everyone, and Sybil makes her escape, running up four flights of stairs with her head down. She trips over the last few steps as the tears completely blind her. She bangs her knee and scraps her palms. She gets up and barges into their room, _her_ room now, for the time being, and throws herself onto her bed, letting noisy sobs finally escape.

Stupid, foolish, naïve Gwen! That poor girl. That poor girl. It's for Gwen she's crying, for her comrade and friend. For Gwen. That poor girl. She keeps repeating it to herself – _poor girl, poor girl_ – trying to drown out the other voice asking _How could he, how could he, how could he, how COULD he?_

Because he's one of _them_.

Despite all his talk about reform and longing for a simpler life, despite his kindness and attention toward her, his interest in her ideas, his kisses and his pretty words, he's a born and bred aristocrat, one of them to the core. More than that, he's a snake and a _liar_. He's a natural born politician, telling his audience what they want to hear. How did he seduce poor Gwen, she wonders – with intellectual discourse, with books and pamphlets, with talk of socialism and the women's vote? Not bloody likely. But that's his particular skill in life, isn't it? He ferrets out a girl's soft spot and plays upon it until he gets what he wants from her. Until he's had his fun with her. Until she becomes an inconvenience. Until he _ruins_ her. And then he tosses her away like yesterday's news.

Now the voice has changed – _how could I, how could I?_

How could she let herself be so compromised and corrupted into befriending the enemy? How could she be at all surprised he'd do something like this? How could she be shedding tears over someone like _Tom Crawley_? She knew what he was like, and she _knew_ this would happen, she _knew it_! How could she let herself fall under his spell and how could she let him kiss her like that? How could she be so bloody _stupid_?

* * *

TBC.


	6. The War At Home

He's away longer than she expects. If he's thinking he can stay away until she's no longer angry and hurt, until she no longer hates him, he may as well not come back.

A new maid is found. Her name's Ethel and she has red hair, too. And a big mouth. Ethel has no interest in being Sybil's friend and vice versa. Things carry on as usual.

But Sybil's decided this can't continue. She _needs_ to start putting money away so she can take a secretarial course and eventually get out of this place. She tells this to her mother in a letter (omitting some details). Her mother is a big martyr and says not to spend any of her money on her poor old ma in the first place. Sybil doesn't listen, but she does start to save more.

The Archduke of Austria is killed in Sarajevo and the papers she nicks from the bin start talking about war coming to the Continent. How stupid, Sybil thinks. How backward. Stirring up conflict based on imperialistic, aristocratic nonsense, potentially fighting a war to preserve old ways in a modern industrialized age when factories can make weapons of destruction more massive than anyone has ever seen before? It's infuriating. She has no one to talk to about any of this. She writes it in her journal.

Mr. Carson brings her a letter from the post. London postmark but no return address. She doesn't open it because she knows who sent it, she recognizes the handwriting. He used to write in the margins of the books he leant her. She suddenly has a very vivid memory of a day some time ago when Gwen got a thick, large envelope from her secretarial course in the post but had asked Mr. Carson if anything else had come for her. Tom Crawley had been away at the time. Sybil now has to wonder if Gwen had been looking for a letter from him, a note from her lover.

Sybil goes straight to the kitchen and lifts a cover on the roaring hot stove, dropping the unopened letter through the hole and into the flames.

"And what was that?" Mrs. Patmore asks, pushing by, always so nosy.

"Just some bad news."

* * *

The house has been in a state of activity all week, all leading up to today, Lady Grantham's garden party. It's been marred, darkly, tragically, by her Ladyship's miscarriage. Sybil thinks it's both ridiculous and brave to carry on with some frivolous party after that, but she's not paid to think, as Mrs. Hughes reminds her the _one time_ she says anything that week.

On the morning of the day, she hears word that Tom Crawley is back, just in time for the party. Never one to miss a party, she's sure. A more loving son would've come back as soon as he heard of his mother's distress.

She doesn't see him until the party is in full swing and she's hard at work. She glimpses him on the other end of the marquee. He has a drink in hand and stands talking with his brother Matthew, but continuously looking around like he's distracted. Like he's looking for something. Someone might say he looks very fit and handsome in his well-cut summer suit, his dark blonde hair sun-kissed to the limits of its blondness. _Someone_, but not her. His searching gaze now wanders in her direction and she quickly turns her back, bending down and hopefully out of sight to clear some empty wine glasses and teacups and saucers from a table.

She picks up her laden tray and heads for the serving tent so the kitchen boys can wash the dishes and have them ready for reuse. Intent on her task, she weaves her way carefully through the guests, eyes half on her obstacles and half on her rattling tray. Someone sets an empty glass on her tray as she tries to get by. "Hello, Miss Sybil," the someone says, and she looks up sharply, startled and suddenly face to face with Tom Crawley. She's seized in that moment, suddenly unprepared. He gives her a warm smile, saying quietly, "How are you, love?"

Her whole being flares with hatred and she spins away from him, which is a rather terrible mistake, her tray smacking into the back of a guest standing right there, knocking it from her shaking hands and sending all the glassware and china crashing to the ground in a tremendous, time-halting clatter. "_Shit_," she exclaims, throwing herself to the ground to clean up the mess. She gets the terrible sense everyone around for miles heard that and is now staring at her. As fast as she can, she loads the tray with the broken and unbroken dishes, her shame infinite and beyond when Tom Crawley crouches down beside her.

"Here, let me help," he offers, picking up a broken cup.

"I can do it, _sir_," she insists harshly, doing her best to speak past the hot lump in her throat. She takes the cup from his hand and in her extreme haste and agitation manages to slice her finger open on the broken edge. She gasps in shock, the sight of the quickly welling blood worse than the pain at the moment.

"It's alright, it's okay," Tom coos, taking her hand in his even as he reaches for his handkerchief. She rips her hand away and tries to carry on picking up the dishes, insisting she's fine.

"What's happened?" Mrs. Hughes hisses quietly, suddenly swooping in.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Hughes," she mutters. God, she's bleeding everywhere.

"It was just an accident," Tom interjects, trying to be helpful. "No big deal."

"You're bleeding, Sybil," Mrs. Hughes points out unnecessarily, and not with sympathy. "Go to the house, wrap that up immediately."

"I can manage—"

"Go. _Now_. We'll take care of these."

Tom takes her elbow, helping her up. "Thank you, Mrs. Hughes. I'll take her to the house, make sure she's alright." A flicker of something like disapproval flits across Mrs. Hughes's face, but she says nothing, just nods as Sybil discreetly tries to take her arm back. He's not letting go, however, and he leads her away, past all the staring faces.

"I can take care of myself, Mr. Crawley," she bites out coldly as he escorts her across the lawn.

"I know you can. But let me do it," he says, wrapping his handkerchief around her bleeding finger, clutching it there as they walk quickly. She's his prisoner. He smiles at her again, not cottoning to her mood. She seethes.

He takes her down to Mr. Carson's office. "Carson always used to bandage up our war wounds here when we were kids," he says, closing the door behind them. She wants to kick him and run. "The three of us would be running around the grounds, playing soldier, beating the stuffing out of each other." He smiles at the memory as he sits her in a chair by Mr. Carson's desk. He knows right where to find the first aid kit, it seems, pulling it out of a cupboard behind the door.

Crouching down in front of her, he takes the bloody handkerchief away. She stares pointedly at the wall to her left, not wanting to look in his warm eyes, or smell his fresh, clean, earthy scent, or be anywhere near him ever again. He must mistake it as squeamishness. "I think it looks worse than it is. It won't need stitches." She's silent while he dabs iodine on her cut. "So how have you been, Sybil? Aside from a recent flesh wound." He wraps the cut tight in a strip of gauze.

She presses her lips together, dying to lay into him and cut from him a pound of flesh. She shouldn't say anything at all, just get this over with, but if she doesn't answer, he'll try and try to pry words from her. "It hurts," is all she says.

"I know, my darling, I'm sorry," he murmurs, tying another strip of thick cotton around the gauze. "But see? All done." Good god, he's so patronizing! Has he always been this way? Probably.

He's leaning over her hand, about to kiss her bandage. But he can't kiss this and make it better. She stands up quickly, not allowing it, saying sharply, "I have to get back to work. Thank you for helping." She slips by him but he grabs her uninjured hand, pulling himself up and keeping her from reaching the door.

"Sybil, wait." His fingers thread with hers. She jerks at the feel of it. "I don't suppose—"

She can't take it a moment longer, all her patience snapping like an over-wound spring. "You don't suppose what? That I'd like to take my friend's place in your bed?"

He blinks. "What?"

His grip loosens and she frees her hand. "Gwen, you remember her. My friend whom you used so shamelessly and discarded so disgustingly."

"_What_?" He seems to search for words, for some defense. "I-I thought you of all people would be _pleased_-"

"Pleased? _Pleased_?" Maybe he really _is_ that obtuse, that ignorant of the world taking place around him. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No! I don't—"

"Why didn't you marry Gwen?" she demands, switching gears quickly.

He gapes at her, as though she suggested he marry a man. "_Marry Gwen_? Where the hell did that come from? Why would I-"

"So it's alright for you to bed her and use her and take her virtue and _ruin_ her forever—"

His eyebrow shoots up. "_Ruin_ her—"

"-But not to marry her. A true man would, a gentleman-"

"Sybil, what do you want me to say?" he interrupts, sounding supremely frustrated. "Do you want to hear the truth?"

"That would be a nice change of pace."

"I have _never_ lied to you!" he suddenly shouts, his voice filling the small room. "Not once! Nor did I ever lie to Gwen. No, I was never going to marry Gwen, she has no money or status, and more importantly I did not love her. And I never led her to think I would marry her or said I did love her. I never led her on—"

"Maybe not in _words—"_

"She understood that I'm not a monk or a saint and that I have needs, Sybil, and the _truth_ is Gwen had needs, too. _Women have needs too_. Even _you_ have them, I've felt it. And if you were truly an enlightened woman, a modern woman, a liberated one, you would recognize that women have needs just as much as men and you wouldn't be so goddamn precious about it."

She hits him then. She slaps him across the face. It stings her hand but she's strong and knows it hurt him more; his face is already getting red there. He says nothing, struck silent, his eyes blazing. "That is a simplification and a justification for your bad behavior and holds absolutely no water when the woman is in a subservient position and doesn't have any way to _protect _herself. You _disgust_ me. I'm ashamed I ever let you touch me."

His voice is measured and calm but edged with barely contained anger. "You're making too much of this—"

A horrified laugh springs from her mouth even as tears of hate and rage spring to her eyes, and she whirls away, storming to the door, throwing it open, storming down the corridor. She's _outraged_. For him to get that poor girl pregnant, ship her off to god knows where, and then actually say out loud that Sybil should be _pleased _that she's gone, and that she's making too much of it – it's beyond outrageous and beyond the pale.

She hears Tom call out to her, but that only makes her walk faster, heading outside. She almost plows right over Mrs. Hughes, just coming through the back door. "Sybil!" Tom calls again, catching up to her, but finding Mrs. Hughes there, too. It stops him short.

"Mr. Crawley, your mother was asking for you," Mrs. Hughes tells him. Tom clearly doesn't believe that but the stern look on the housekeeper's face leaves no room for argument. He nods shortly and leaves them, stomping his way back across the lawn.

Mrs. Hughes turns to her, takes in the high color of Sybil's face and the tears still in her eyes. "Be careful, lass, or you'll end up with no job and a broken heart," she warns.

"I don't know what you mean," she answers rigidly.

"Are you fit to work?"

"Yes, ma'am." For today anyway. But things have got to change. And soon.

* * *

He doesn't come near her as she works, but she feels his eyes on her every move, heavy and dark. She knows he's drinking heavily and quickly, a bottle of wine in his hand, refilling his own glass every time her gaze sweeps by him. Well he can go to hell on an ocean of claret.

She's thinking of what she might do if she goes back to Ireland, weighing her options for immediate escape, when Sir Robert's voice calls out, asking for the music to stop and for everyone to listen.

"England is at war with Germany," Sir Robert announces, grave and shocked.

And nothing is the same after that.

* * *

TBC.


	7. The American

1915, Wimereux, France

If she was a man and she was called up for military duty in this war, she wouldn't do it, she would refuse, she wouldn't fight. She'd rather go to prison as a conscientious objector.

But as a female, as a lowly housemaid, as a woman trying to start a new life, as a girl trying to get away from a man with too much influence over her emotions, she finds it's easy to set aside her moral and political objections and join in the effort.

She's taken to nursing like a duck takes to water. She doesn't regret for a moment leaving Downton Abbey, going to nurses' training in York. She does think it's fine and noble to serve the men who are serving their country, even if it's not her country. And her decision to become a nurse has brought her to this beautiful old hotel on the French side of the Channel, the Hotel Splendid, now converted to a Red Cross hospital, and it's not a bad place at all. The sea air and sunshine, the distant view of the white Dover Cliffs on clear days, the palms and blooming flowers, the line of shops and cafes, the beach, the rococo casino next door (closed for now) – this would be a lovely place to vacation. It takes some, _some_, a tiny bit, of the edge off the work she must do, the wounds she must tend, the death that takes place here.

On a rare afternoon off duty, she treats herself to an ice cream and sits on the sea wall. A shadow falls across her. "Hello, miss. May I sit with you?" She looks up and shields her eyes from the sun. A young man in uniform stands in front of her with his own ice cream cone. His smile is easy and his hair is sandy blonde and his eyes are big and blue and her chest tightens, her heart thumps hard.

She was still at nurses' training in York when she received his letter. No postmark, no return address – it had been hand-delivered, it seemed, to the training school. She held it in her hands and briefly wondered if he'd dropped it off himself, if he'd asked to see her and been turned away by the matron. Sybil wouldn't have received him anyway. She held his letter in her hands and her first thought was to refuse this too, toss it in the fire like the last time.

But something made her do it - she opened it. Maybe because she felt sure she'd never see him again and it didn't matter anymore what he said.

"_Dearest Sybil. I won't pretend to fully understand what transpired between us, what turned your opinion of me so drastically, though I've tried to explain my actions. I do know you're a woman of high ideals, deeply felt principles, and great expectations, all of which I deeply respect and admire, and the long and short of it is I have disappointed you, full stop. I will always be sorry for that. _

"_I have been a disappointment for too many people for too long and I intend to change that. You've always inspired me and I now follow your example by offering myself to the service of the country. I've enlisted in His Majesty's Army and will be headed to officer training after I pass a physical exam. I think you can guess my opinions on the war itself – I don't believe in its causes and purpose, if there is any purpose. But I want to prove myself to my family, my peers, and especially to you. Even if the only thing I'm proving is that I'm not afraid to die. _

"_I hope to see you again someday, but if that is not my fate, please believe that I am forever your greatest admirer and faithful servant. I wish only for your happiness._

"_Most sincerely, your friend always, Tom."_

She didn't cry over him again, she didn't write back, he was still bloody obtuse, but she couldn't be completely cold – she was scared for him. He was going to war with a death wish.

She's thought of him often since that day, wondering where he might be. Wondering if he's still alive. Right now, here on this French beach, the young officer in front of her boldly holds out his right hand, saying, "Lt. James Weir."

She pulls herself together and takes his hand. He gives it a firm shake, a couple quick pumps. "Sybil Branson, British Red Cross."

"Fantastic, a doctor?"

"A nurse."

"Well I'm very pleased to meet you! I'm a medic myself, in fact."

His accent has made itself clearer to her and she says with surprise, "You're an American?"

"Yes, miss. But half-Scottish so they let me join their ranks, y'see. So may I join you on this lovely day?"

She's reminded of a puppy, for some reason. She gets an immediate impression that he's just..._uncomplicated_. Breezy. It must be his Americanism. She wonders if he's from someplace called Iowa or maybe Oklahoma. And his hair is slightly wavy, not straight. And he's not so stocky and powerfully-built, he's taller. "Please be my guest, Lieutenant."

She lets Lt. Weir buy her a coffee in a café after they've finished their ice cream. They don't talk about politics so much, mostly about medicine, about the hospital she's at, even about Scotland. He doesn't cease to give the impression of being uncomplicated and she enjoys his easy optimism. He really does seem to be on vacation, not a few days away from leaving for the front. When he asks to meet her for dinner the next evening, it doesn't take her any thought to agree.

They drink a lot of wine at dinner because he's in fact leaving the _next morning_ for the front. Sybil doesn't think he seems scared, drowning his fears in drink. She asks him about it. "Good wine, good food, a pretty girl to talk to, lovely moon out, why not enjoy it while it's here?" he answers her. "So what do you think, Miss Branson? Will you come out with me again next time I'm in this neck of the woods?"

They walk along the sea wall after dinner. She takes his arm to keep her balance on the uneven stone, her shoes and the alcohol making her a wee bit unsteady. Their tipsy laughter and the waves crashing echo off the wall and they walk all the way to the end, away from the warm yellow glow and minor hustle bustle of the high street. They stop and sit on the end of the wall and he holds her hand. Kisses it. The moonlight and shadows cast his young, smooth face in white and black, make his eyes dark and glittering jewels. He's quiet and his gaze steady and he's leaving in the morning to face...the unimaginable. He's so young and beautiful. She's scared for him.

She leans into him. His kisses are slow and deep and warm and undemanding, his arms are warm and strong. She doesn't feel overwhelmed or overheated or coerced or confused, she feels...free. And there's something in her handbag that's helping her to feel free. Something Head Matron at the hospital gives all the nurses on their first day and then lectures them on its proper use. Something her Catholic mother and sisters would say is a sin. Something she didn't have access to back at Downton Abbey, but what if she had? It's something that makes her feel free and safe enough to lay back against the wall and let Lt. Weir lay on top of her and touch her everywhere and drag her skirts up with a slow hand, something that lets her whisper against his lips, "I want to," when the time arrives.

She wants to. The need is there.

She takes the _something_, the rubber, from her handbag and they laugh and kiss their way past the awkwardness as she helps him put it on.

In the moonlight they're young and beautiful and free and outrunning death.

* * *

The next time she sees him is when his name appears on a list of the KIA. Her beautiful American didn't last two weeks in those trenches.

She keeps seeing him laying dead in a trench, muddy and broken, his blue eyes open and unseeing, his mouth open in a frozen, silent scream.

Sometime it's Tom Crawley she sees dead in that trench.

* * *

TBC.


	8. Revisionist History

1917, London

The military hospital on Endell Street isn't the holiday spot Wimereux was. And winter's coming again, dark and dreary rather than bright and cheery. Any general optimism anyone had two years ago, even a year ago, is gone gone gone as the war drags on and on and on.

Sometimes men or soldiers or doctors ask her to step out for a flick or a walk or a drink. She always has to decline – all her free time is occupied with a secretarial course. She doesn't want to be a nurse when the war ends, if it ends. She likes the work but it's continuously heartbreaking. She still wants to be in an office or at a newspaper, working, in some way, toward building the future, doing something that might be part of _averting_ wars like this, rather than patching up its victims.

The other reason she has no time for men is perhaps silly, but she doesn't want to dishonor the memory of Lt. Weir, devalue their very, very brief but lovely time together. She didn't and doesn't love him – it's not about that. She wants to hold onto that time, that memory, and prize it.

* * *

Two days before Christmas is a sodden and quiet day, and everyone riding the bus seems lost in their own little worlds, quite devoid of holiday cheer. Sybil is, at any rate, and staring out the window but not seeing much, even disinterested in reading the papers. Nothing but bad news there.

"Sybil? Sybil! Sybil Branson!"

She finally tunes in enough to realize someone is saying her name. She looks up and finds a young woman in a smart black hat and a beautiful hunter green suit standing over her seat, beaming and bright-eyed. She stares at the young woman, trying hard to place her face. A nurse? Who? And then she sees coppery red hair tied in a bun at the back of her neck.

"Gwen Dawson?" she shouts suddenly, startled and amazed. People turn to look at the disturbance but she doesn't care. Gwen is nodding furiously. Sybil's eyes rake over her, take in the smart clothes, the bright complexion. Sybil's not sure how she expected Gwen to look, really. Destitute? Like a lady of the street doing what she must to keep food in her bastard child's mouth? Instead she looks..._fantastic_. "My god, it _is_ you! Good lord!"

Gwen bends down and Sybil reaches up and they hug, a little awkward at this angle, but heartfelt. Funny how years apart and a war on can instantly wipe away whatever petty ill-will there might between two former friends. The past is dead as she and Gwen clutch each other tight.

"How have you _been_, Sybil? Lord, it's good to see you! I have to hear absolutely everything," Gwen insists.

_She_ wants to hear everything? No no no. Not until Sybil hears Gwen's everything first.

* * *

Sybil sits in the quiet pub, her half-pint of cider mostly untouched, staring back as Gwen stares back at her in shocked silence. "Thomas Barrow said I was _what_?" Gwen hisses, leaning forward.

"It wasn't him, it was Miss O'Brien."

"O'Brien said I was _with child_?"

"Yes. Well, no. She...inferred it."

"Why in god's name would she do such a thing?"

"Because...because why else would Tom Crawley have you sacked and sent away so suddenly."

"Not because I was with child!"

Sybil's inside sink further, some hint of a terrible truth starting to emerge. "You-you weren't?"

"_No_. My god! That's what everyone thought? Lord. I haven't kept up with any of the downstairs lot, it's true, but maybe I ought to have! Is that what you thought, Sybil? All these years?" Sybil nods, feeling more and more miserable, feeling like the room is starting to move. "Oh my god. Sybil, Tom Crawley didn't get me _that way_ and he didn't sack me. He got me a job as a secretary in the Home Office, here, in London."

"He. What."

"I was...well you know. Intimate with him. I was in love with him. I thought I was, anyway. I knew he didn't love me but I didn't care, I was so... I was such a dippy little girl, really. Tom knew I'd been taking secretarial courses and he encouraged it, he encouraged me to look for a better job, go after my goals. But I didn't want to leave Downton, I wanted to stay with him.

"He finally sat me down and he told me he'd never be able to give me the life I _wanted_ at Downton, but he could get me the life I _deserved_, a better one, here in London. So he arranged for me to work in the Home Secretary's office. An _incredible_ position for a first-timer. He even found me a nice room to rent, paid for it for the first month or two. He was brilliant and he did me the biggest favor anyone ever could. But, lord, I was so angry at the time! I was a _fool_, I was blind. But I suppose even then I knew it had to be."

"Why?" Sybil croaks, her world turning on its head.

"Because he was in love with _you_, Sybil. I knew it. Everyone knew it."

Sybil didn't know it. Did she? She feels ill.

"Why do you think all the girls at Downton hated you so? Even me, I admit. Not because we thought you were sleeping with Tom – _everyone_ was sleeping with him. We hated you because Tom _loved_ you. And didn't love us. He never talked with us the way he talked with you. He never carried us through the whole downstairs in front of everyone and _never_ would've snuck up to the servants' corridor, into our room, and risk getting caught by Mrs. Hughes, not for any of _us_."

"He said he did it all the time," Sybil says, bewildered, feeling stupid.

"Rubbish. He's scared shitless of Mrs. Hughes, frankly, if you'll pardon my French," Gwen laughs. "You really didn't know any of this?"

"I didn't even give him a chance to explain," she mutters. "I thought...I was so..." She has no idea what to say, her head spinning.

"Well. It's not too late, Sybil darling."

"Too late for what?"

"It's not too for you to get him back! You still love him, don't you?"

Sybil stares at Gwen. Love him? Love Tom Crawley? Did she love him? _Does_ she love him? But then a gear grinds to life and she has a brand new thought: "How do you know it's not too late?"

"True love never dies-"

"No, no, I mean how do you know he's not dead in a trench in France somewhere?" Sybil asks. She thinks of her beautiful American.

"Oh, well that's easy. Because he's still at Downton Abbey."

But that can't be. "But he said he was enlisting as an officer." Something awful occurs to her. "Was-was he _injured_? Did he get wounded?"

"No, no, he never got into the service. They turned him down for a heart condition. A murmur? A heart murmur."

A heart murmur. _Thank god_.

A heart murmur isn't good but he's not lying dead in a trench. Or even injured. She feels rather limp with relief. It's so strange – she hasn't given thought to Tom Crawley's welfare in..._a while_ before this afternoon. And now it feels like the most important thing in the world. "How do you know all this?"

"I saw him last year here in town. He came for business and checked in on me. He told me he was rather disappointed after getting rejected from the service, especially since they accepted his brother Matthew. 'Rather disappointed' indeed. He probably felt rather _impotent_, which, I imagine, he dealt with in a variety of unproductive ways. But when I saw him, he'd been working one of the tenant farms after the farmer got called up. I mean, can you imagine, Tom Crawley driving a tractor, working the land, milking cows or whatnot?"

She tries to imagine it. And fails. But she can imagine him with a milkmaid.

"It seemed to do his head some good, anyway – he said he'd started helping his father with the running of the estate, _and_, this you'll find interesting, darling, he was telling me he had plans to turn Downton into a convalescent hospital for wounded officers."

"You're joking with me." That does pique her interest. Very much. "Do you know if he actually did it?"

Gwen shrugs, shaking her head. "I don't know for sure, I haven't caught up with him since. But he seemed very keen at the time." She pokes a finger into Sybil's arm, punctuating her words as she says, "It would be worth checking into, Sybil. You follow my meaning?"

Sybil toys with her half-pint, shaking her head, saying, "I don't know. It's been a long time. Too much time has passed, too many things were said. We're nothing to each other now."

Gwen sighs and says, "Look, it comes down to whether or not you still love him. That's all. That's it. The rest is detail."

* * *

She can't sleep that night, every single one of Gwen's words rattling around inside her head, her mortification and remorse growing as the minutes tick.

How wrong she was.

How awful she was.

How stupid she was.

She'd always thought of herself as a reasonable, fair, open-minded, considerate person, never one to judge a book by its cover, always willing to hear the opposing argument, always one to hate an injustice. But the _one_ person in the world who treated her as an equal, she treated with the most injustice and high-handed disdain. She never gave him a chance to explain—

She never gave him a chance to explain.

He sent her a letter and she never opened it, she put it in the fire. _That_ was his explanation.

If she were him, she would never forgive her.

She hears Gwen's voice again, ringing over and over. _It comes down to whether or not you still love him, the rest is detail_. Rather big details, though. And she's just not sure she ever did love him, let alone _still_.

But at three a.m. on Christmas Eve morning she decides it's a good idea to write a letter to Dr. Clarkson in Yorkshire to see if they ever did turn Downton into a hospital. And, if so, if there might be an opening for her there. It takes her two hours to write the letter, word it properly so as to sound businesslike yet keen to help and appropriately longing for the good old Yorkshire countryside. Anyway, it's unlikely he'll respond or that there will be a place for her, so no harm no foul.

By the time she reaches the postbox near her boarding house that morning, she's not sure why she's written to him at all. And the moment she's dropped the letter in the box, she wishes she could take it back, groping around in the box for her envelope, her arm engulfed up to her elbow. It's no use.

If Clarkson does write back, she'll simply ignore it.

Her secretarial course is over and on the last day of the year she receives in the post her final scores in typing, shorthand, proofreading, and grammar. Top marks. She could get just about any secretarial position she wants with such scores. In the same post, she receives a letter back from Dr. Clarkson, his reply telling her to come on up to Yorkshire as soon as is convenient, for there is most certainly a place for her as head nurse at Downton Abbey.

She's on a train to York the day after 1918 begins.

* * *

TBC.

* * *

**A/N**: Thank you so much for your lovely comments! And thank you for giving this AU a chance. I wasn't sure how it'd work out but I do hope you're enjoying it and will continue to do so.


	9. The Only Girl In the World

She walks through the front entrance of Downton Abbey, not the back, because, as she walks up the stony drive, suitcase in hand, she sees two uniformed medics carry out a short stack of empty stretchers and load them into an ambulance, leaving the front door to the house open as they motor off. No footman, no Mr. Carson hovering, playing guard of the castle. It seems a new day has reached Downton Abbey, things far different from how she left them.

It's dim and shadowy in the foyer, her eyes struggling to adjust and her shoes silent on the thick red carpeting as she steps inside. It smells the same, that's the first thing she notes – like a church, like candle wax and old stone and old wood and the slight mustiness no amount of cleaning can eliminate.

The second thing that strikes her, hard enough to make her breath catch, is the sight of Tom Crawley directly ahead of her.

He stands alone in the middle of the Great Hall, framed like a picture by the dark foyer and arched doorway between them. He's a portrait of study and concentration, looking down at a ledger and flipping through its pages, a pale light falling on him from the windows high above, bathing him and crowning his winter-darkened hair. His back is half-turned to her and he cuts a fine figure in his dark waistcoat, the cloth stretched across his broad shoulders and strong back, the sleeves of his clean white shirt rolled up knotty arms, and his tailored trousers draping perfectly over his curved backside.

Her pulse is fast and her palms inside her gloves feel clammy. She hasn't seen him in more than three years. She never thought she'd see him again. He's twenty paces from her.

She's drawn forward and stops just inside the threshold of the Great Hall, her heels sounding lightly on the floorboards. It's enough in the silence and he looks up, turning her way. He looks the same, of course: the same expressive, big eyes, the same strong neck, the same handsome face but older now and less boyish, more defined, harder. "Can I help you?" he asks.

She's seized with cold and panic. He doesn't know her. He doesn't _want_ to know her. He's pretending he's never known her.

But then his face stills. His whole being seems to still. The air in the room stills. Time stills. She dare not breathe. Her heart doesn't go still, beating so hard it shakes her body. She stares at him and he stares at her.

Of course he knows her, but a stone settles into her guts as she realizes he didn't know she would be coming here, back to Downton, back into his life. She thought Dr. Clarkson would've told him. She thought...she even thought perhaps Tom Crawley had approved her appointment in his convalescent hospital home. This was a huge mistake.

She suddenly thinks of her beautiful and dead American boy and she's reminded that she's not a girl anymore, she's a professional woman, and that propels her forward. She sticks out her right hand. "Hello, Mr. Crawley."

He watches her hand coming at him like it's a snake, like he won't take it. She's reminded that in this world masters don't shake hands with the servants. She's not a servant. She doesn't lower her hand, waiting. He takes it. She gives him a firm shake, a few quick, confident pumps.

"Nurse Branson," he greets her formerly, letting go. She's not in her uniform, she's in her traveling clothes, but he clearly knows she's still a nurse, anyway. So perhaps...

"Did Dr. Clarkson—"

"I'll take you to him," he says, leaning toward her. But it's only to take the suitcase from her hand and he turns away, walking out of the hall, toward the grand staircase. His strides are long and sound heavy on the bare floor and she hurries to keep up. Only now does she notice the changes in here, the fine furniture gone, the Oriental rug gone. Long folding tables are stacked by the fireplace, and bamboo chairs stacked against the wall.

He sets her case by the stairs, leaving it there. "I'll have someone take it up to your room," he says.

"My—"

"You'll be in the old governess room."

So he did know she was coming? She's still not sure. "But I've taken a room in the village."

"Get rid of it. The Head Nurse stays here. You're on duty from seven in the morning to seven in the evening, but you're on call at all times, in case there's an emergency," he explains plainly, leading her through the house, not looking back at her. He clears his throat. His voice is a little more conversational when he asks, "Did the car show up in time or did you have to wait long?"

"At the station? There was no car."

He grunts. "There was supposed to be a car for you. So you wouldn't have to walk."

"Thank you, Mr. Crawley," she says, adding, desperate to somehow start bridging the gap of three-plus years, a spectacular misunderstanding, and his evident detachment, "For everything."

He briefly glances back at her. "Nothing to thank me for if the car didn't show."

"All the same."

He says nothing more as he leads her through the rooms, looking for Clarkson, finding him in the music room. Sybil takes it all in quickly –furniture removed, cots lined up, men upon them, some sitting up, some asleep, some bandaged everywhere, others less visibly damaged. There are two nurses here, pouring tea, checking bandages. Nurses under _her_ supervision now, remarkably enough.

Dr. Clarkson gives her a more cordial greeting, smiling and telling her it's good to see her again, that he's looking forward to working with her. "Dr. Clarkson will show you around and fill you in on how everything's done, Nurse Branson," Tom says, all business. "Any questions, direct them to Dr. Clarkson or his Lance Sergeant." He turns, leaving her with Clarkson, but she just catches it as he says, walking away, "Welcome home, Sybil."

* * *

She's never been Head Nurse before, and she's somewhat surprised by how busy she is, even in a relatively small convalescent hospital such as this. Her first point of business, with so many men in the house, is to do for her nurses (and some of the maids) what Head Matron at Wimereux did for her – provide protection and lessons on how to use it. It comes with a strong warning that _no_ fraternization will be tolerated between nurses and patients. Or between nurses and _anyone else in the house_. But she knows that things may (likely could) happen, and to deny it would be naïve and blinkered. Better to be prepared than foolish.

Day to day she runs the hospital not with Dr. Clarkson but with his Lance Corporal – who turns out to be Thomas Barrow, of all people. Clarkson is in and out, shuttling between the house and the village hospital.

And despite unexpectedly living in his house again, even living on the same floor, she seems to always be just outside Tom Crawley's orbit. He is everywhere yet nowhere she is. Gone may be the young man who slept in until lunch, the bored aristocrat with nothing to occupy his time but liquor and sex, but gone, too, is any notion he might fall into her arms when she came back, the past so easily erased like it was with Gwen. She maybe let herself get carried away by the revised portrait Gwen painted of Tom Crawley. The portrait dazzled her.

But the real, living, breathing man she's found here, is he so well-drawn?

She sees him pass by an open door and hears him talking numbers with the family lawyer trailing behind. She sees him through a window, walking around the perimeter of the house, examining it with Mr. Jarvis, the estate manager, Tom pointing up at a section of the eaves that shed shingles in a high wind. She sees him escort his mother down the stairs, both dressed for dinner, Tom resplendent in his dinner jacket and white tie. She finds him suddenly beside her when a patient grabs her bum, Tom's face red as he lays into the man for disrespecting her, for thinking she's only here to serve tea to a bunch of randy officers, for not treating her as a professional – and then just as suddenly Tom disappears again. She sees him come in from outdoors at dusk, wearing coveralls and boots and covered in mud, pulling off thick leather work gloves and shaking snow from his hair, his face ruddy from the cold.

She finds the real, living, breathing man to be even more dazzling.

Before she left London, she hadn't been sure if she ever loved him, used to love him, or perhaps still did. But now she knows.

* * *

A musical evening is announced, a program to be performed by the Crawleys and some of their friends, something to entertain the men and to celebrate Matthew Crawley's imminent return home, if only briefly on a short leave.

She looks forward to it for days, eager for a change of pace and for the chance to be near enough to Tom to talk to him for the first time since the day she arrived at Downton. On the evening, she's not silly enough to change into her nice frock for the evening – her uniform will suffice. But she does take a few extra minutes in her bedroom to brush and replait her hair, leaving her white cap off for the night. She puts on just a little rouge, too. She's happy with the effect. She hopes Tom will notice. She hopes he'll be in a friendly mindset, warmed by the return of his brother.

But she ends up arriving last to the Great Hall, diverted by trying to find one last extra wheelchair for a Captain who lost his leg up to the knee due to trench foot. He's been very low but finally, at the last moment, agreed to take in some musical entertainment – a good sign, Sybil figures. And when she finally takes her place, standing at the back, she sees no Matthew Crawley. "He's still in France," Thomas Barrow tells her, standing with her. "His leave got cancelled."

"That's too bad," she murmurs under the high, sweet, somewhat thin, voice of Her Ladyship as she finishes singing "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" at the piano. Now Sybil's eyes are scanning for Tom Crawley, spotting the back of his head in the front row – she knows that neck.

As everyone claps for Lady Grantham, a young lady rises and takes her place at the piano bench. She's pale and delicate-looking, with lovely pink skin, strawberry blonde hair, and a prettily plain, round face. Sybil's never seen her before – she must be a friend of the Crawleys, a neighbor's daughter or someone's niece.

Tom Crawley stands and gives his hand to his mother, escorting her to her chair, but instead of sitting back down, he goes to the piano to stand beside it, giving the strawberry blonde girl a deep smile as he announces, "My fiancée Miss Swire and I have prepared for your listening pleasure 'If You Were the Only Girl in the World'. And while Lavinia has a beautiful voice, you might feel differently about mine, so please feel free to join in and spare me too much humiliation."

There's some polite laughter and piano chords fill the room but Sybil barely hears it – she stopped listening at Tom Crawley's first two words: "My fiancée."

His fiancée.

His fiancée.

His fiancée.

The girl playing the piano. The girl singing with Tom Crawley right now. The girl Tom is smiling at. The girl he called Miss Swire, Lavinia. The girl he called his fiancée. His fiancée. His _fiancée_. The girl he will marry.

Sybil can't breathe. She can't see anything but the way Tom is looking at the girl before him, like she's-like she's...his fiancée. Her face is on fire. She shouldn't have bothered with the bloody rouge! How stupid! She must look like an idiot wearing her makeup, wearing her uniform but no cap, showing off her hair like it's some crowning glory. What a bloody fool she is, at every bloody turn! She ducks her head, totally humiliated and hiding her scarlet face, hiding the tears swelling in her eyes, cursing herself.

What an idiot. What a ridiculous idiot she is.

She remembers the last time she felt so completely disappointed by Tom Crawley, how she'd run up the stairs and thrown herself on her bed and soaked it with sobs like a petulant child. She made terrible, emotional, prejudice assumptions after that, stupid mistakes.

She's a grown woman now and too damn old to be feeling so foolish. She won't bawl this time. And she won't run away. She has a job to do here. And she was right before when she told Gwen that she and Tom Crawley are nothing to each other anymore. Tom Crawley is nothing to her now.

She sucks up her tears and her snot and lifts her head, hardening her heart.

* * *

TBC.


	10. The Changeling

"Nurse? Nurse, can I ask you something?"

She freezes, his chart in her hands, startled by the new patient's accent. It's American. Hope and horror have her chest squeezed tight.

He arrived this morning, transferred from another hospital in London, but this is the first chance she's gotten to examine him herself. She looks at him closely, right in his eyes. The poor man is wrapped from crown to neck in bandages, his face burned away, but they don't cover his mouth or his eyes and it's impossible not to see the hints of tremendous damage underneath. A man without a face. Unrecognizable. But for an American accent.

With shaky hands she looks at his chart, dreading what she'll see there. Could her beautiful American- Might he still be- Her finger traces his name – Maj. Gordon, Patrick. Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

He's Canadian, not American. Part of her is undeniably disappointed. Part of her is terribly relieved.

She wonders what Patrick Gordon looked like before the war. And not for the first time since becoming a nurse, she wonders what's been the bloody _purpose_ of all this carnage. There is no purpose as far as she's concerned. "How are you, Maj. Gordon? I'm Nurse Branson. Have you settled in well, are you comfortable?" she asks, her professional smile fixed in place.

"Yes, I'm very well, thank you. I have a question, though. Do you think you could help me with something, Nurse Branson?"

"I can certainly try. What do you need? A letter written?"

"No, no letter. I was hoping you could perhaps ask my-I was wondering if you could have Lord Grantham come talk to me?"

She works hard to keep her face neutral, not betray her surprise at the request. "Can I ask why? I know Lord Grantham likes to meet the men, but he's very busy, you understand."

"What about Tom? Tom Crawley, that is."

"Do you know him?"

"We used to know each other very well."

"From school?"

"No." Maj. Gordon hesitates, perhaps wondering if and why he needs to explain himself to a nurse. "From here."

"From Downton? Were you a—"

"I grew up here, you see." Well, what does that mean, grew up here? "It's difficult to explain, and a very long story, Nurse Branson, one I need to tell Tom or-or his Lordship. But the short of it is my name isn't really Patrick Gordon. It's Patrick Crawley. I'm Patrick Crawley."

* * *

She hesitates before knocking on his office door. In times past, she was in almost the same situation, hesitant to go into his chambers, hesitant to be around him, afraid of him. She's not afraid of him now but still hesitant to be around him. Actually, she'd like to never have to be near him at all. Out of sight, out of mind. For weeks now, she's done all she can toward that aim, avoiding everywhere and anywhere he is, dodging into a room if she sees him coming down the hall, going upstairs via the servants' staircase, whatever it takes.

But now she has to go in there, to him. Fine. She wraps on the door, hard. He calls out, granting entrance. He's sitting at his desk, leaning over a ledger. He looks up, seeing her come in, and just for a moment he looks panicked, like a cornered animal. She can sympathize. He looks back to his ledger even as he speaks to her. "Can I help you, Nurse Branson?"

"I'm not sure, sir. Something's come up and it's rather...well, I'm not sure."

He looks up, wildly unimpressed. No, this is no good, she's dancing around it, she just needs to come right out and say it, be direct. So she does. She closes the door behind her and comes right out with it, everything she knows – which isn't much at all. Patrick Gordon, perhaps Crawley, did tell her a little more, how he was rescued from the icy waters after the Titanic sank. How he woke up in Canada with no memory. How he woke up in a field hospital in France with all his memories intact again. How he arranged to get himself transferred here as soon as he could.

The leather of his chair creaks as Tom sits back, absorbing all her words. He's quiet for a long time, looking directly at her. Looking at her like she's lost her damn mind coming in here to tell him this wild story.

"I never met your brother, sir, I have no frame of reference, but I felt it was my duty to report it to you, someone running around claiming to be the heir to Downton. Is he probably a crackpot? Yes. But should someone who knew Patrick speak to him, just in case his outlandish story is true? If there's even the slightest chance it is? Yes."

He still doesn't say anything. She reaches back for the doorknob, thinking it's time she went. But then he stands, jerking down his waistcoat. "Can you take me to him, please?"

* * *

She deposits Tom at Patrick Gordon's bedside and takes her leave. This is none of her business, her duty has been carried out. She has plenty to do elsewhere, and so she attends to those things. But when she returns some time later, she's mildly surprised to see Tom sitting in a chair by Patrick Gordon's bed, the two apparently locked in conversation. It looks intense and serious, but then Tom suddenly laughs, a full and real laugh, the sound echoing down the long room. Very surprising indeed.

She watches as Tom stands and shakes Patrick Gordon's hand before picking up his chair and turning away. Sybil stays where she is at the door as Tom stacks the chair with others by the wall and approaches. He quirks his eyebrows at her as he brushes past and she takes that as a cue to follow him down the hall. Curiosity gets the better of her and she does follow.

"I don't know," he says, suddenly looking a bit lost. "I really don't know. How can I not know my own brother from a-a disfigured stranger?" She doesn't answer because she's not sure how to answer and because she doesn't want to get involved. He doesn't seem to expect an answer anyway, lost in his thoughts. "I have to go talk to my father. Excuse me." He walks away but then pauses, glancing at her as he adds, "And-and thank you for bringing this to me."

"Just doing what anyone would do, sir."

* * *

She gets wind of some sort of investigation happening on the Crawleys' side, getting their lawyers involved, even one in New York. Undoubtedly, they're checking on the years between 1912 and today, who Patrick Gordon was during that time, who he might be really. She's not privy to details, and doesn't care to be, but they seem to be taking this man seriously, which is both bad and good, in her opinion.

She keeps finding Tom in the ward, sitting with Patrick. Tom's whole demeanor seems _light_, she notes. _Happy_. They spend an awful lot of time together, even walking around the grounds outside. Sybil gets the distinct impression Tom believes the man really is his brother, despite the investigation apparently being anything but over.

She can't help but often run into the ever-faithful and loyal Anna, still in service here, and, alarmingly, not even Anna, who knew Patrick when he was alive before? not dead? not missing a face?, seems to know if he's the _real_ Patrick or not.

Sybil thinks that if the man really is a con, he should probably win some sort of prize for the skill.

* * *

She's changing Patrick Gordon/Crawley's bandages one afternoon, just starting to unwrap the old bandage, when she hears Tom's voice ask, "Do you mind if I...?" He stands on the other side of the bed, his question addressed to Patrick.

"No, I don't mind."

She knows what's under the bandages and she wonders if Tom is prepared for it. It's extreme. But maybe Tom knows what he's about – she wonders if he thinks seeing Patrick's face, such as it is, will somehow prove or disprove his identity.

He sits there quietly as Sybil carefully removes the old bandage and the gauze underneath. It's nothing less than shocking, the sight. She hears Tom suck in a breath. Whoever this Patrick is, he has suffered mightily. He will never ever be the same, never be healed, never be himself again. No matter what, Sybil does feel tremendously sad for him. But it's an impossible task for anyone to recognize the man he used to be under all that wrecked flesh. She knew that already. Now Tom knows.

"I'm so sorry, Pat," Tom says quietly. "I don't have adequate words—"

"You have nothing to be sorry for, brother," Patrick answers. Patrick's ruined flesh pulls up in what she assumes must be a reassuring smile. "You didn't do anything."

"That's...that's part of the problem. I wanted to go over, you see. I wanted to..." Tom shakes his head, unable to finish. She catches Tom's eye, just for a moment. She knows what he wanted to do – he wanted to die in battle. He wanted to prove his life had value in death. He admitted it to her, the words forever scratched on her bones. It passes between them in their shared glance, the truth and the memory.

"You've done tremendous things here," Patrick assures him. "You should be very proud of all you've done. And don't ever be sorry for me. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm home. That's enough for me, Tommy."

Almost done rewrapping his head in clean gauze, she comments lightly, "Tommy? I've never heard him called that before." She feels Tom's eyes burning into the side of her head for the inappropriate timing and massive liberty, but she persists, something compelling her tongue, a purpose slowly fomenting in her head. "Is that what you used to call him when you were children?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"He also used to call me Roly-Poly, do you remember that?" Tom interjects. She cringes inside, wishing Tom would shut his mouth, for this is how con men work, isn't it - getting fed the information they need from the marks themselves.

"Roly-Poly. Because you were such a tremendously fat little bugger, weren't you!"

"You used to tease me mercilessly."

She can't keep her own mouth shut, saying, as she wraps clean cotton bandages around the gauze, "Tom told me once how the three of you boys used to run around playing soldiers and beating the stuffing out of each other." She's treading on landmines, dredging up the very worst moments of her shared history with Tom.

"Yes, we certainly did!" Patrick agrees. "But that's what brothers do, isn't it?"

She keeps going, reaching her final destination. "And how Mrs. Hughes was always the one to patch up your war wounds. How she'd sit you boys down in her parlor and put bandages on your cuts and scrapes after all the roughhousing."

"Yes indeed, quite so. Dear old Mrs. Hughes. She had to patch us up quite a lot!"

And there it is.

She calmly finishes her task, not giving anything away.

But the penny has dropped.

_He took her down to Mr. Carson's office and closed the door behind them. He made her sit in a chair by the desk so he could bandage her bleeding finger. "Carson always used to bandage up our war wounds here when we were kids," he said warmly, getting the first aid kit from the cupboard behind the door._ She recalls how, at the time, she just desperately wanted to kick Tom and run out of Carson's office, get away.

There's a sudden screech as Tom stands abruptly, his chair scraping on the floorboards before tipping over with a clatter. He's staring down at Patrick, his face a black storm cloud, his lips pressed tight together but his face shaking, as though violent words are fighting to escape his mouth.

"Tommy?" Patrick Gordon says.

Tom suddenly turns on his heel, storming away, knocking over a tray of water glasses in a blind haste to get out of the room. Glass explodes, louder than thunder. His steps shake the floor. The rest is silence.

* * *

When she reports for duty the next morning, Patrick Gordon is gone. She asks Thomas Barrow if he was transferred. "No, he wasn't. He just took off like a thief in the night. Don't know where he went."

"Thief in the night is right. Trying to steal an Earlship."

"So you think he really was a fraud, then?"

"I think scampering away under the cover of dark is a guarantee he was. He knew he was caught, he knew the game was up."

She doesn't see Tom around at all that day, even when she makes up a thin excuse to go down to his office, even when she goes up the main staircase at the time he usually comes down for dinner. He's seemingly disappeared too. But she won't worry about him. It's nothing to her.

She's called downstairs late that night, after eleven, to deal with an emergency – an officer with shell-shock, locked in a waking nightmare, was trying to choke the life from another officer. It takes Mr. Carson, Mr. Moseley, and Thomas Barrow to pull him off the victim and restrain him, hold him down so she can get the needle in his arm to administer sedation. For the first time in weeks, she would've liked Tom to be there – if only to provide more muscle.

The men go back to bed but she's suddenly very awake, her nerves rattled. She wants tea, going down to the kitchens in her dressing gown to make herself some. She likes the kitchens, the downstairs, late at night when it's quiet and empty and not heaving with activity. She likes the warm rooms and the tile floors smoothed down by constant traffic and the worn tabletop in the servants' hall. The downstairs is a living, breathing entity, and at night it takes a sigh of relief.

She pours the water she's boiled into the teapot, over the leaves, and puts the pot on her small tray with her cup and the sugar bowl. She finds the cream in the icebox, returning to the kitchen with it, almost dropping it on the floor when she sees Tom Crawley standing at the kitchen door. She yelps in surprise, she can't help it. "You scared me, sir."

He stares at her. "Sorry. I thought it was Mrs. Patmore or someone in here." He glances behind him as though contemplating escape. He's wearing his coveralls, covered in filth, some of it streaked across his face. He fiddles with the work gloves clutched in his hand. The cold is still on his cheeks. "I've just come in," he explains awkwardly, unnecessarily.

"I was just making some tea," she answers just as awkwardly and unnecessarily, the steaming teapot right in front of her. She remembers she's still in her dressing gown, her hair falling out of her braid, and grows even more self-conscious. "You-you look like you could use some. Tea."

"I was rebuilding a wall."

"In the dark?"

"No, uh, earlier." So that's where he disappeared. "I've been in the garage tonight. Working on my car."

She nods. "So would you like tea? There's plenty."

"Um. Sure. Thank you."

She finds him a teacup and pours some through the strainer, adding cream and sugar at his request. She holds out the cup and saucer to him, expecting him to take it and leave, alleviate their mutual awkwardness. He doesn't, though, he just takes it and stands there holding it like he's waiting for her. "I was going to have mine in the other room," she explains. He nods, still waiting. And when she finally picks up her tray and carries it into the servants' hall, he surprises her by following along. Sitting down at the table with her, taking Mr. Carson's chair. Waiting until she's poured her own cup to finally sip his. They sit there in silence, sipping tea. She studies the pattern on the teapot like it's the most fascinating design in all of Christendom.

"So he's gone, I gather," Tom finally says, breaking the silence.

"Yes. Left in the middle of the night."

"Yes." He clears his throat, turning the cup in his hands. The chair squeaks as he fidgets a little. "Last night, I tried to convince myself that he just forgot about what you...about Mr. Carson patching us up. He lost his memory, it was to be expected, forgetting details. But... Well, it was an unconvincing argument. He wasn't Patrick, was he?"

"I don't think so, no," she answers quietly.

"I really thought it was him," he admits. "I really... Christ, I'm so _stupid_. How could I be so goddamn _stupid_ and _blind_? How could I let myself believe any of it?"

"Because he was a very good con man. Because you wanted it to be him. You wanted your brother back."

He nods, leaning forward, over his tea, staring into it. He shoves his fingers into his hair, pushing back the hair falling over his forehead, smearing a streak of dirt across his skin. "Thank you for what you did."

She allows herself to study him for a moment. The muck on him, his dirty work clothes, the smell of earth and sweat clinging to him like any common workingman. He could be any husband in this country, come home from a long day on a building site or factory job; and she could be any wife, waiting up for him to feed him his dinner and make him some tea. It's a pleasant and painful fiction. Life _is_ that easy and simple and ordinary for some people in this world, and she envies those people. And they probably envy her less humdrum life in return. No one ever seems to have what they want.

"Maj. Gordon was truthful about one thing, Mr. Crawley. You've done marvelous work here, opening the house up as a hospital. You _should_ be very proud." She hesitates, feeling mightily exposed when she adds, "_I'm_ very proud of you. For whatever that's worth."

He looks up sharply, pinning her with his intense gaze, almost like she's insulted him rather than complimented him. He sits back in his chair again, arms folded across his chest, his forehead creased as he puzzles something over. "Why did you come back here? To Downton?"

The question catches her off guard. She casts about for an answer – any answer but the truest one. "Because I heard it'd been converted to a convalescent hospital."

"How did you hear that?"

"From Gwen Dawson." Skirting closer to the truest truth now.

Now she's the one catching him off guard. He rubs a hand over his chin, smearing more dirt. "Gwen Dawson." He says the name like it's the answer to a cosmic joke.

"I ran into her in London, very unexpectedly."

"And how was she doing?"

"Very well. Better than I expected." That seems to confuse him. "I thought... I had assumed she might be in reduced circumstances."

"Why would she be—"

"Because I was wrong," she blurts out, cutting him off. God, she should not do this, but now that she's started, she just has to get it all out, finally. "Because I was horribly wrong and stupid. Because I let myself believe something terrible because it fit into my prejudice, unreasonable view of...of..._you_."

"Me? What was the terrible thing? Something I did."

"Something you _didn't_ do. And something you did do but I didn't know it." Now she's really got him confused. She forces it out, miserable and ashamed. "I thought you got Gwen Dawson pregnant and sacked her. I didn't know you'd gotten her a secretarial job. I assumed the very worst and that was unforgivable."

"But..." He looks a bit stunned at her admission, like he's trying to process all of it. "But I wrote you a letter, I sent you a letter from London explaining—"

"I never read it," she admits. His face closes up. She's just digging the hole deeper. "I didn't give you a benefit of the doubt, I just... I behaved unforgivably and I'm very sorry for it. I hope you'll believe how very sorry I am."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't look at her. The hurt radiates off him in waves. He drains his teacup and stands, the chair scraping. He's leaving, she thinks; she's ever ready for him to walk away from her. But he doesn't, again – he paces a little, he looks at the line of call bells bolted to the wall, he jiggles one, makes it chime. Finally he speaks, more calmly than expected.

"I never gave much thought to how all these bells are wired up. All those pulleys and cables running inside the walls, through the whole house. I just pulled the cord and someone would appear to do anything I needed, just like magic. For a long, long time, I never gave any thought to _anything_ going on in this house, how it all works and fits together, how all the moving parts matter. But...but shortly after you left Downton, the bell in my room stopped working. No one came when I needed them. The line inside the wall had snapped and for the first time it mattered how the bells worked. And it was then I realized how right you were about me."

Now she's the confused party. She's about to repeat how wrong she was, but he sees it and holds up a finger, asking her to wait.

"You were right when you said I was making justifications and simplifications for my own bad behavior. I was. To me, Gwen and-and the others were just like the bells – beckon them and they'd do anything I wanted, I didn't care how they worked. So I can understand why you thought those things about me, why you assumed I'd ruined Gwen in that manner. If the shoe fits and all that, right?"

"But it didn't, not _really_—" she tries.

"It fit well enough. I do believe you're sorry, and I'll accept the apology if you want me to. But I'm sorry too. I'm to blame, too. And do I wish..." He taps one of the bells again, not looking at her. "Do I wish things had worked out differently between us? Yes." His quiet confession makes her breath stop. "But what's done is done, you see. All the apologies in the world can't change what has passed or how things stand now. Things are the way they are."

She's struck by that. "Things are the way they are," she repeats. Not because she believes it but because it sounds like something his father would say. "And things can never change?" she asks.

"No."

"How very intransigent."

"_This_ is, Sybil," he insists, sounding frustrated. "I'm not getting into a philosophical debate with you. I'm going to bed. Thank you for the tea," he says stiffly, walking out, leaving her there alone with her thoughts, which are many.

She knows the past can't change, but he admitted he wished things were different. There's a lot to be read in that. She doesn't believe things can't change going forward, they _can_, and he used to believe the same thing, she _knows_ he did. Maybe, somehow, she can convince him to believe it again. It doesn't have to be a wish.

* * *

TBC.


	11. Building the Future

She knocks on his bedroom door - short, hard, urgent wraps. It's late, it's very late, he's probably dead asleep. She presses her face to the crack of the door, speaking into it, "Mr. Crawley. Mr. Crawley." Time is short - she has to do what she has to do, so she goes in, her small kerosene lamp kept low to light the way. She calls his name again and movement stirs under the blankets. In the old days, a naked girl might've jumped out from under the covers, but she's not worried about that anymore.

His head emerges, his hair askew. "What's—" The word dies on his lips when he sees it's her. He sits up a little more. "Sybil. What are you doing?" he asks quietly.

"Apologies for the intrusion but there's a medical emergency downstairs and we need someone to drive down and fetch Dr. Clarkson. Immediately."

"What about—"

"Pratt is drunk, sir. He can't drive."

"Jesus Christ," Tom growls.

"I'm sorry."

Tom throws back the blankets and climbs out of bed. Her lamp doesn't throw much light but when he comes around the bed to go to his dressing bureau, she can clearly see he's naked, completely. She can see all of him. This - _this_ is what she should've been worried about instead, but apparently he's unconcerned and unashamed, as usual.

In the almost four years she's done this nursing work, she's seen men in all states of undress. But none of those men were Tom. None of those men were at the very peak of health, the way Tom is. Their bodies were bleeding, broken, and battered, not carved from wood as Tom's is, his sturdy body more finely tuned than ever. And none of those men, not even her beautiful American at the height of pleasure, possessed the singular..._masculine advantage_ Tom has. None of those men were as beautiful.

The first time she saw him naked, all those years ago, in this very room, she was shocked and frozen in place. She's the same now. Transfixed.

He yanks open the top drawer of the bureau, but now stops, catching her watching him in the reflection of the mirror atop the dresser. She doesn't look away. She should. He should tell her to go, give him privacy, but he doesn't say anything. Her heart races. She could go to him, she could touch his body. She wants to. She could make him hers. It would be easy.

But this isn't the time. There is no time.

He's turning toward her. "Sybil."

But she turns away, sets the kerosene lamp on the table by his bed, leaving it for him. "I have to go back down. Thank you for helping out."

He clears his throat. "Of course, anytime."

* * *

She finds a note slipped under her door the next morning. His handwriting. "Meet me in the garage at three o'clock." _Why_? It makes her nervous. It has her checking her watch every five minutes, all day. It keeps her mind spinning. She doesn't want secret assignations, she doesn't want to be an engaged man's mistress, and he won't get that from her, no matter how much she wants him. She wants his love. This is how Gwen and all those other girls felt – wanting him, loving him, trying to have him, doing whatever they thought it would take to win his love, but ultimately having no hope, the man remaining frustratingly unattainable.

"I'm teaching you how to drive," is the first thing he says when she steps into the garage at one minute to three. Well, she wasn't expecting that. He opens the driver's door of his motorcar, his demeanor all business. "Get in."

She fiddles with her gloves. "Is this so I can work double duty as chauffeur and nurse?" she tries.

"The livery won't fit you."

At least he seems willing to jest with her. That's good. It puts her at ease. A little.

But the ease doesn't last terribly long – not with him sitting right beside her in the front seat, his heat and his scent enfolding her; not with his hand on top of hers as he shows her how the gear lever works; not with his arm reaching across and brushing her chest as he grabs the wheel to occasionally correct her steering.

But the rather stressful act of learning how to operate and control this huge, rumbling machine, and the fact he's having her drive all the way to Ripon, makes her soon forget his proximity, all her focus shifting to the task. She feels wrung out by the time they arrive. And then he tells her she has to parallel park it. "Do _what_?" He's practically sitting in her lap, steering for her, and ten minutes have elapsed before she's finally got the car in position.

"Close enough," Tom says and slumps against his seat, laying his head back like he's exhausted. "I need a drink after that ride."

"I wasn't _that_ bad, surely."

"And I'll need a second to fortify me for the drive back."

Now he's just teasing her. "If you don't like my driving, you have only yourself to blame. That's the _Tom Crawley _method. Now you know what your passengers go through!"

"You could be right."

* * *

He ends up being serious about the drink.

They don't drink whisky and lager and smoke cigarettes this time, not like the last time they were together in a pub. Well, _she_ doesn't – he's having lager, but she prefers cider. She sips it and he ignores her, conversing with an older man a table over about the finer points of repairs and modifications he's made to his motorcar.

"You really do know a lot about automobiles," she comments when the older gentleman excuses himself and Tom turns his attention to her. "You have a real passion for them."

"I suppose so."

"No supposing about it. You told me once all you wanted to do in life was fix engines and drive cars."

"You don't forget anything, do you?" he says wryly. She could tell him he was only wearing pajama bottoms when he told her that. "I've been thinking..." he begins, but seems reluctant to continue. "I've been thinking about what I'll do when the war's over. If it ever ends."

"It has to end, doesn't it?"

"Well, I was thinking I'd open an automobile dealership. Start my own business selling cars. And fixing them," he explains a little bashfully, like the idea is stupid.

"I think that's a tremendous idea, Mr. Crawley. You'd be brilliant at it."

"You think so?"

"Without question."

He seems pleased. "I've been thinking about it for a while."

"And where would you open your store—"

"It's not a _store_, Sybil, it's a dealership. There's a difference."

"Where would your _dealership_ be?"

"London, I think. That's where all the punters are, really. That's where Lavinia's family is, too."

It's like a glass of cold water right in her lap, that name. She takes a long, deep drink of her cider. She wishes it were whisky now. Lavinia Swire is never at Downton, never referred to, at least not when Sybil's around, so to hear aloud the actual name is a swift reminder that Lavinia is still a _person,_ not an...intellectual abstraction.

"I've never had a business of my own before. I've never had _anything_ of my own before. But I think I could make a go of it, I really do."

"I've no doubt," she says distantly, suddenly feeling like she'd rather not be here.

"That's really why I gave you driving lessons today," he says.

"Hm?"

"To woo you." She chokes on her drink a little, coughing. "To cultivate you into a driver so you'll buy a car from me someday."

"And because Pratt drinks too much to be relied upon in an emergency, I believe, Mr. Crawley."

"The way I see it, if women are now to finally get the vote, then they're going to want autos to celebrate their new-found liberty. And I want to sell them those autos."

She ignores that fuzzy logic and latches onto the important part of what he just said, her interest piqued. "Ah, but not _all_ women will be getting the vote, will they? And that's even if the House of Commons actually _does_ pass the Representation of the People Act."

"You don't think they will? The politicians can't very well have millions of men over twenty-one coming back from war and still unable to vote. I mean, they're fighting to preserve a political system they still don't have a voice in. How would that look? Not very good politics."

She lets herself get drawn in. "But I could see a scenario in which they decide to ignore that aspect of the Act in favor of continuing to deny women the vote. Despite the contributions they've made to the war effort. The House of Commons can be just as intransigent as the House of Lords."

"There's that word again," Tom comments dryly.

She ignores that, skates around it. "And if they do pass the Act, women still won't be politically equal. It's not fair."

"But it's a _step_, isn't it?" he argues, leaning forward, his forearms on the table. "It's a big step. I thought you'd be pleased."

"It doesn't go far enough!" She punctuates it by banging her glass on the table. "Not only do women have to be thirty but they have to own property? Or be _married_ to a property owner? Because women without property or husbands can't have opinions, I suppose." She leans forward on the table, too. "And why _do_ women have to be thirty, and not twenty-one? Because they don't want women to be in the _majority_! We would have the majority vote if age parity was built into the Act."

"Because millions of men have died," he says lowly.

"Yes. Yes, that's true. And it's tragic. But that doesn't mean the House isn't deathly afraid of true egalitarianism. So it's one step toward the future, perhaps, but with one foot firmly rooted in the past. It's not enough."

"So you're not pleased." His eyes dance. He's amused. But she's serious.

"I won't be truly pleased until we have _real_ change. Until we are truly the same," she replies passionately. He's quiet, his chin propped on his fist and his gaze intent on her, a little smile teasing his lips. "Don't make fun of me. It's cost me all I've got to say these things."

"I was just thinking that if women _were_ the majority, we'd never get into another war again." His voice is a spell. If she leaned forward, she could kiss him. Could a kiss erase the last four years? No. Could it remind him of what they could've been and could still be? Perhaps. She licks her own lips, staring at his.

She hears his glass slide against the tabletop just before he brings it up, taking a drink, sitting back in his chair. Moment broken.

"I do believe change will come," she murmurs. "I guess I'm just impatient for it."

* * *

The change does come a week later. The House of Commons does pass the Representation of the People Act. Women, some of them, can now vote. When she reads it in that evening's paper, she gets more excited than she anticipated she would. She stood the hard line with Tom, but when it actually comes, the passing of the Act, she's thrilled. She wants to share her excitement with someone who understands, who cares, who's interested, who's _Tom_.

She takes the paper with her and goes down the hall to his office, slowing down when his father, Lord Grantham, comes out of Tom's office. She stops, pressing herself against the wall, trying to be invisible. An old habit. But warranted right now because Lord Grantham's face...she's never seen him so unguarded. He looks upset. No – he looks _gutted_. Ashen and shaken to the foundations. She needn't try to be invisible to him; it looks like the world is invisible just now.

Her excitement is very much tempered when she taps on Tom's door, just ajar. "Mr. Crawley?" There's no answer. She can't see him around the door. She taps again, giving the door a little push. It swings open some and now she can see him. Sitting at his desk, slumped in his chair. Looking just as ashen and gutted as his father.

"Mr. Crawley?" Her excitement is gone. Something's wrong. "Tom."

He looks up now, slowly, as though dazed. He looks at her with shining eyes, _wet_ eyes. He lifts his arm, holding something out to her, a piece of paper. A telegram.

"Oh god."

She goes to him, takes the telegram from his fingers. Her stomach is a twisting knot. She reads the telegram. It's not quite what she expects but it's horrific nonetheless. Unspeakable.

The telegram says Capt. Matthew Crawley is missing in action and presumed dead.

* * *

TBC.


	12. The Heir

10th November 1918

She's not sure she believes in God. Most days, she doesn't give it much thought. Other days, she thinks it's probably impossible. But she goes to church today, Sunday, the day before the Armistice is to be signed, because it seems...necessary. The soul of the Western world is deeply wounded and she wants to pray to God or to the Universe or to the invisible strings tying all of humanity together for those wounds to be healed, and for peace to last. She wants to honor the souls of the dead with her humble prayers and remembrances. She prays for Lt. James Weir. She prays for the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of men she met in the hospitals, some passing through the hospital alive, some passing through on their way to the graveyard. She prays for Capt. Matthew Crawley.

She got a lift to Ripon, where the Catholic church is, from the ambulance driver, but with church over, she has to walk all the way back to Downton, no buses running to the village today. She doesn't mind, though, because she can cut through the fields to save time and it's not rainy, so she won't have to tromp through the mud. The fresh air clears away the cloying scent of incense still in her nose, and clears her head. She should've just taken a walk instead - communed with the Universe out in nature, no ritualism required.

Apparently someone else had a similar idea – far up ahead, at the top of a rise, she can see someone sitting atop the stone wall that marks the furthest southern boundary of the Downton grounds. She heads that way, scaling the rise, huffing and puffing by the time she's gotten to the top. But the view is worth the sweat, the land sloping away from this vantage. It rises and falls, grassy and lightly forested with bare trees, the fields shorn, sand-colored and harvested. The great house is in the far distance, it's high tower making it stick out notoriously from the idyllic landscape, its enormity somehow not diminished even at this distance. It's a marvelous view and would be even better in the summer, when everything's not so gray and bare.

The someone sitting on the wall has ridden up here, for there's a horse munching grass on the other side of the wall. "Hello," she calls out to the horse owner's back, making him turn suddenly, startled.

Of course it would be Tom Crawley.

Now she feels she has to explain herself. "I was just walking home from church, you see."

He nods. "Come up here, sit with me."

The wall is up to the middle of her chest; she won't be able to boost herself up there but tries anyway. Tom swings around and hops down, landing beside her. He puts his hands on her waist and picks her up, setting her easily on top of the wall. It's easy for him to boost himself back up, he seems just to hop and he's standing above her, towering there in his high leather riding boots and his pale, tight breeches. She watches the fabric stretch over his strong thighs as he sits again. She scrambles to turn herself around to match him and they sit together, facing the view. She doesn't know what to say to him now but his horse is a distraction, coming around to sniff her feet. She rubs his shiny brown nose.

"I feel like I haven't seen you in ages," Tom says.

"The war may be ending but we've been busier than ever. As soon as a bed goes empty, it's filled again."

"And I've been back and forth to London most of the summer and fall, it seems. I'm sorry we couldn't continue our driving lessons."

She shakes her head. "Nothing to be sorry for. I know you've... It's been a difficult time," she says delicately.

"Tomorrow at eleven, my father's gathering everyone in the Great Hall for a moment of silence when the Armistice is signed."

"Yes, I know."

"And then the war will be over. Finally. Thank god for it. But I..." He shakes his head, staring straight ahead.

"But you're not sure you wholly want it to be?" She clutches her fingers together, adding softly, "Because of Matthew. Because it will mean he's really..."

He doesn't say anything for a while, he doesn't change his gaze. "You know me very well." He reaches out to his horse, rubbing his neck. "This is Matthew's horse. I only started riding him when he left. Better horse than mine. I feel like I'm stealing his life. My father talks to me like he used to talk to Matthew. He said the other day I've _proved_ myself. Proved I can be the next Earl, is what he meant."

"Is that what you really want? To be the Earl?"

He shrugs. "I will be, it will happen."

"But with all the rest it means - running this estate? What about your dream?"

"What dream?"

_What dream_? "Your auto dealership. Isn't that why you've been back and forth to London, getting it set up?"

"No," he bites out bitterly. "I was back and forth on business of the estate, in fact. I'm _already_ running it. I'm doing it. I've _been_ doing it. I found out my father invested all my mother's money into _one_ enterprise. _Everything _into the Canadian Grand Trunk railway. A fucking railway when the entire industry has been massively overbuilt there, when railways are going _out_ of business, not expanding. It's so _stupid_. I was in London because I had to fix it before he ruined the entire estate, before it all came crashing down around us."

"But that cannot be what you want out of your life. Preserving the past, and for _what_?" she argues, struggling to keep her voice gentle. "If you are running the place already, could you not decide to put the house to some better use? You could keep it open as a hospital or mental institution, some place to help all the men coming back. Or even a school—"

"No," he cuts her off. "It's my duty now to be the steward of Downton. I have a responsibility to preserve its history and status."

She shakes her head in dismay and can't hold herself back. "That's ridiculous."

"_No_, Sybil. It's my life now!"

"But it's not what you want!"

He's alight and fuming, his body tense and his stare intense, leaning forward into her body. She doesn't know if he's going to scream at her or kiss her. She doesn't shrink away. She's breathing hard. She'll let him take her right here on this stone wall. She has what he wants, she'll give it to him.

He straightens up, staring forward again. "Sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having," he says stiffly. He says it like he's repeating something someone else told him. She doesn't believe it. He doesn't mean it.

"Not the way you mean," she can't help but add.

"We should go home." That means the conversation's over. He clicks his tongue and his horse ambles over. Tom grabs the reins and lowers himself down into the saddle. He scoots up. "Get on behind me."

Her blood is still up. "I can walk back."

"Have you ever ridden before?" he asks, ignoring her. She shakes her head. "Don't worry, I won't let you fall. Hold onto my shoulders and swing your leg over."

He made it look easy but he's wearing trousers. Her skirts make it awkward but she manages without losing too much of her dignity. Though she is pressed up right against him, wriggling into place. And she does yelp like an idiot when the horse shifts a little. And she does throw her arms around Tom's middle, terrified when the horse takes a single step. She's not got much dignity left after that.

"You're alright, you're fine, I've got you," he coos, patting her arm, giving her wrist a squeeze. "Just hang on, here we go."

Hang on she does because it doesn't seem to get any less terrifying. She presses her face to his back, his muscles hard against her soft cheek. She closes her eyes and tries to ignore the horse and the fear of being thrown to the ground. She just focuses on holding in her arms the man she loves, the man slipping further and further away.

* * *

The hospital doesn't shut down the day the Armistice is signed. They still have men to rehabilitate. And more coming. The war at home isn't over. But ten days later, another telegram arrives that throws the whole of Downton for another one hundred-eighty degree turn. And it throws off the black veil that settled over it all those months ago. It throws open the shutters she's been drawing around her heart, letting selfish hope back in.

This telegram is the exact opposite of the last. Matthew Crawley is alive.

She learns he's in Calais being treated in a hospital, to be shipped back to England as soon as the doctors will allow. He was in a German POW camp, injured and bed-ridden, no letters ever making it out of that camp and back to Downton to let them know he was alive. But he is, and whenever she sees Tom around the house in the days leading up to Matthew's arrival, she finds him smiling, beaming.

But the great homecoming celebration the Crawleys plan is forgotten when the oldest son actually arrives. It becomes clear how lucky he is to be alive at all and how badly he was treated in that camp. He's rail thin, a ghost of the man he used to be, and riddled with untreated bedsores and infection, barely clinging to life. And he's paralyzed. Happy smiles are muddled with heartbreak, glowing faces become brave ones.

She's tasked with being his personal nurse, her top priority no longer the hospital but making sure Matthew Crawley doesn't die. She makes sure he doesn't. She won't let Tom lose, find, and then lose a second time yet another brother.

* * *

She takes one chair down from the stack against the wall and sets it in the middle of the bare, emptied room, sitting down and just taking a moment for herself. The last of the cots and medical supplies were trucked away this morning, the last patient returned home yesterday. The war is over, and Downton Hospital is closed now. But she's still here. In limbo. Homeless and jobless.

"What will you do now?" Tom Crawley asks behind her, walking into the room.

"You've read my very thoughts," she answers.

He sits on the deep windowsill, putting his hands in his pockets. "What do you want to do? Come back to service?"

"No," she says, shaking her head. "I won't work in domestic service again."

"Good. Good for you."

"I can't stay here."

"I don't want you to go."

She grips the edges of her chair and studies him hard. "What does that mean?" she asks.

He dodges her stare. "I want you to stay on as my brother's nurse. He's still very weak. And very low. But he likes you. And he tells you things, I know he does." She promised Matthew she wouldn't betray his confidences, but Tom is correct. "About the war, about the camp. Things he won't tell us, and that's fine. He wants to spare us. I won't force him to talk to me. But he needs to talk to someone, get it out of his soul."

"I think that's right," she agrees.

"Will you stay until he's better?"

"He may never be wholly better."

"You're right. But maybe just until he's turned a corner. Just for a little while longer. I know you have greater ambitions than this place, I know the whole world is open to you now, so you'll receive a handsome pay increase for staying on and delaying your plans." She doesn't have any plans. "So will you stay? For Matthew?"

"I'll stay for Matthew. And for you." She doesn't try to mitigate her bold, straight answer. He doesn't move a muscle.

"Sybil," he whispers, his face pained. "You can't stay for me. Understand?" She doesn't answer that. "But I'd like you to stay for my brother. You're good for him."

"I already said I would."

"Thank you. You're a very dear friend."

Her smile is full of heartbreak. Her face is brave. "I'll always be your friend."

* * *

TBC.


	13. We'll Be Together Soon

1919

The best part about being a private nurse, besides the extra money she can send her mother, is the hat. She doesn't have to tie that giant napkin around her skull anymore, she has a small cap she can just pin in her hair. It cuts down on the headaches.

Comparatively speaking, her work now is very easy, almost leisurely. She wonders how the rich can stand it, living such boring, slow, pointless lives. It'd drive her batty.

Sometimes she catches Tom Crawley watching her with Matthew when she's pushing him around in his wheelchair or sitting with him, talking. Sometimes it looks like jealousy, but that's probably just her imagination.

The day Matthew Crawley shows her how he can wiggle his toes, something he just discovered the night before, she knows her days at Downton are numbered. If and when he walks again, he won't need Sybil any longer. But she still has no idea what she's going to do. Maybe ask Dr. Clarkson if she can come work at the village hospital, she's not sure.

Matthew asks her not to tell anyone about his toes, and she promises. It could a fluke. They wait and see if it becomes more than a fluke. But it's not long before she's ferreting out a cane and sneaking it into his room so he can stand up. _Stand up_. "When you were first brought back here, Mr. Crawley, I never thought I'd see this day."

Matthew smiles, though he's sweating and struggling just to stay upright. "Nor did I, Miss Branson."

They work in secret to strengthen his leg muscles. He wants to surprise his family with something more remarkable than hoisting himself up on a cane to stand teetering on wobbly pins. But when he's finally ready enough, he asks her to be present for the big reveal that night in the drawing room. She knows it will raise eyebrows, but she obliges, slipping into the room after the men join the ladies – including Miss Swire, whom Sybil didn't know had arrived at Downton. She feels strange standing there by the door and she can't bear to look at Tom and Lavinia.

She knows how Matthew plans to show everyone his new legs, but the plan is soon thwarted quite by chance when Lavinia Swire accidentally trips on a footstool and Matthew reacts on pure instinct, leaping up from his wheelchair to grab her and keep her from falling into the fireplace. The cat is out of the bag then, well and truly. "It's a miracle!" the Dowager Countess exclaims, breaking the surprised silence in the room.

"Well actually, Granny, it's not," Matthew says, shooting Sybil a small smile. He explains to everyone how the "miracle" has come about, tells them how they've been working in secret, and suddenly it's the homecoming celebration he never got upon his return. Champagne is brought in and she's welcomed into the celebration like she's one of them, one of the family. It's a nice feeling, but odd, and standing next to the women in their glamorous dresses she feels like an ugly duckling in her plain uniform.

Two strong hands on her shoulders turn her around and she's suddenly face to face with Tom and his shining eyes, his brightest smile. He pulls her against him right there in front of everyone, hugging her tight, a big bear hug. She's pretty sure she's jostled champagne onto his dinner jacket. He presses his head next to hers, his nose buried in her hair and his lips brushing her ear when he whispers, "Thank you, Sybil. Thank you so much. Thank you."

* * *

Lady Cora invites her to dine with the family the next evening, in gratitude for helping Matthew. She tries to downplay it – "I was just doing my job, m'lady," – but Lady Cora insists, even sending a few of her old dresses to Sybil's room for her to try on. "I would still wear them myself, my dear, but I'm not quite as slim as I used to be," Lady Cora appends, "But your figure is quite like how mine used to be. They should fit your beautifully. And I'll send Anna in to do something special with your hair. You have such lovely hair, Sybil! I think Matthew will be quite dazzled."

That rings all sorts of alarm bells in Sybil's head. Sometimes she had wondered if Tom asked her to stay in hopes she'd fall in love with Matthew instead. And now Lady Cora seems to be infected by the same notion! Yes, Sybil likes Matthew, he's a lovely man, very kind and gentle, and she's been so happy to see him improve every day, he's come so far. But if that's what Tom hopes, if that's what Lady Cora hopes, that she'll love Matthew, they're both very much barking up the wrong tree. She has less than no desire to be the next Countess.

The dress that suits best between the three Lady Cora sent over is silk and a lovely dark peacock blue with lacy sleeves. Her Ladyship even thought to include long cream-colored opera gloves. And Anna is a wizard with hair, which she's always known. She tells Sybil when she's finished, "You look just lovely, miss."

"Anna! My god, did you just call me _miss_?" Sybil laughs, surprised.

Anna seems to realize it and laughs too. "I suppose I did! Force of habit after helping dress a fine lady."

"You're too funny, girl."

She's feeling nervous when she heads down to dinner. She longs for the safety of her own clothes, her plain uniform, this dress is too nice for her, she feels like a phony, she's sure her arms look like sausages in these gloves. And then, naturally, she meets Tom on the staircase.

He's on the landing when she's at the top of the stairs. He stops, staring up at her fixedly, his mouth opening a little. She never grows accustomed to the sight of him in his evening clothes. She wants to turn tail and run back to her room. She watches her feet as she goes down to meet him.

"Good evening, Mr. Crawley," she says once she's in front of him. She gasps a little when he suddenly grabs her hand and presses his mouth to it. She's glad and unhappy to be wearing gloves.

"You look absolutely beautiful," he murmurs, letting go of her hand.

"That's very kind."

"We'll make a lady of you yet."

She meets his gaze. "I'm content to be a simple Irishwoman."

"There's nothing simple about you."

She notices now how flushed he looks, how high his color is. "Are you feeling well tonight?" she asks politely.

"Yes. Warm, maybe. I was rushing to get ready. We're both a little late, in fact." He offers her his arm. "Shall we?"

Everyone looks at them when they enter the dining room, they're all here already. This was a mistake, everyone's going to treat her like she's an exhibit in a circus, a monkey in a dress. Lavinia will probably claw out her eyes for walking in on the arm of her fiancée. When they treat her with nothing but welcome and kindness, she has to assume they're patronizing her. Tom seats her next to Matthew, who leans over and says quietly, "Relax, Miss Branson. You're doing fine."

She follows his advice, taking a deep breath, making herself settle down. No one's clawing her eyes out, no one's treating her like a freak except her own self, no one's staring at her. Except Tom. He tries to hide it behind long drinks from his water glass. She tries to ignore it. She also tries to ignore the weird, knowing little smiles Lady Cora keeps giving her and Matthew.

They're barely into the first course when Lady Cora puts down her spoon and announces, "Miss Branson, I'm so very glad you could join us for dinner tonight."

As if she had a choice. "Thank you, m'lady."

"I hope it won't be the last time. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to excuse myself, I'm not feeling too well this evening, as it turns out." And she rises from her seat, all the men rising in turn. "I'm terribly sorry."

"Are you alright, m'lady? Do you need assistance?" she asks, rising as well, putting her nurse's cap on for the moment.

"No, no, I'll be quite alright, thank you, you're very sweet." Sir Robert tries to offer assistance as well, but she puts him off, too, insisting they enjoy their dinner. "Good evening all."

She promises Sir Robert she'll check in on her Ladyship after dinner and the first course ends smoothly after that. The second course arrives, Mr. Carson serving her fish and a raised eyebrow of silent judgment for daring to reach above her station in life. She listens to the others talk about people she doesn't know and places she's never been, and she discovers the Dowager is actually a rather funny woman. She also discovers another reason why Lady Cora and Tom have the wrong idea if they think she and Matthew will soon be announcing their undying love for each other: as much as Tom is staring at her, she finds Matthew staring at Lavinia.

How very interesting.

One could start to get ideas and make plots.

God, this must be how the rich fill all these long days – navigating the murky waters of romantic entanglements, closing themselves off to honest feelings. If she stays here much longer, in Limboland, she really will become one of them.

A sudden clatter stirs her from her thoughts. Tom's knocked over his water glass. "I'm so sorry," he apologizes to no one in particular. He pushes himself up, suddenly looking very pale and unsteady.

"Tom, are you alright?" his father asks.

"I'm fine, I just..." And suddenly he's lurching around, knocking over his chair, and throwing himself on a tall vase, probably valuable, vomiting into it.

"Good god!"

Dinner's over after that.

* * *

"It's Spanish flu," Dr. Clarkson announces to the room. She figured as much in the time she had to think about it while she was hurriedly changing back into her nurse's uniform, before the doctor arrived. The rest of the family takes it with equanimity, all too familiar with the reports in the papers over the last few months. But their fear is palpable. Justifiably so.

Clarkson stays until the wee small hours, but there's very little he can do for Lady Cora or Tom. And there's very little she can do either except monitor them, try to make them comfortable. They're both asleep very soon, their fevers not too high, and the rest of the family go to bed eventually. She stays dressed and on duty, more or less - taking a few naps in her room because there really isn't much she can do.

But by mid-morning, both Tom and Cora are deteriorating rapidly. She tries not to show how concerned she is, keeping her professional mask in place. The truth is she's not _concerned_, she's terrified. Specifically for Tom.

Miss O'Brien insists on sitting with Lady Cora and Sybil shows her how to do her best to keep the patient cool with wet towels, for whatever good that can do. But she does the same for Tom, stripping off his sweat-soaked undershirt and keeping the wet cloths coming. He practically burns right through them.

By that evening, Dr. Clarkson is at the house again, on-call, and Sir Robert has taken up the vigil with the immoveable Miss O'Brien. Lady Cora will be lucky to survive the night.

She leaves her Ladyship's room and returns to her post in Tom's, where she finds Tom dead asleep, Matthew and Lavinia sitting with him silently, Lavinia resting her hand atop Tom's limp one. "Sybil?" Lavinia asks in her soft voice. "Will Tom... Is he going to..."

Live? Die? "I'm not sure," she answers honestly. "But I'm going to sit up with him and I will come get you immediately if anything changes. For better or worse."

"Thank you."

Matthew and Lavinia leave for bed, Lavinia pushing the chair he still needs, for now. Sybil takes up her own private vigil over her sleeping patient, pressing wet cloths to his face and neck and chest, wringing them out and wetting them again, over and over and over. It's good he's sleeping, he's been restless most of the day. She studies his face as she trails the cloth over it; he still looks so boyish when he's at peace. She combs back the sweaty hair from his forehead. His scalp is so hot under her fingertips. She touches his neck - it's scalding and his pulse is fast. He stirs, waking up, shifting restlessly, twisting up his sheets, groaning and muttering unintelligibly. "Shh," she hushes him, coaxing him to lie still, running her cloth over his skin. He opens his eyes, his dark blue eyes fuzzy and blinking up at her. She smiles down at him and he seems to focus, swimming up from the depths.

"Sybil?"

"How are you feeling?"

"Sybil, Sybil." His hand finds hers, covering hers as she rest the cloth on his chest. "Sybil. Darling girl."

"Shhh," she insists.

"No, no, listen Sybil." Even his fingers are hot as they stroke against her cheek. "I love you." She shakes her head, trying to shush him again. "I love you so much. I've always loved you. Did you know that? Do you know how much I love you? Always. Always."

It's too much. Her pulse is as fast as his. She threads her fingers with his. "Tom—"

"Do you love me?"

She presses his fingers to her lips. "Yes."

"Where are you? Don't leave me."

"I'm right here."

"I want to be with you forever," he murmurs, his eyes closing. "We'll be together forever. Soon. In the next life, love."

"Shh, darling, stop."

His eyes flutter open again. "Can I have a kiss before I go?" he whispers.

She smooths her hands over his face. "You're not going anywhere. I've got you," she chokes out, trying to speak around the tears.

"Please?" Tom begs.

She leans down and gently kisses him. She's not kissing him goodbye. His lips burn hers. She kisses him deeper, staying there, remembering. It's the same and it's new and it's been..._forever_. She's _not_ kissing him goodbye.

He falls back into a restless sleep, sweating through the sheets. She won't say goodbye. He's not going anywhere. It's hard to convince herself that's true. Holding his hand, she slides off the bed and onto the floor, kneeling there beside him, clutching his hand to her wet face.

Most days she doesn't think about God, other days she thinks he's an impossibility. Tonight she begs God to let Tom live.

* * *

TBC.


	14. A New Day

It's just after five in the morning. His breathing slows to nothing. He stops sweating. His body cools.

She thinks he's dead.

Just for a moment.

Then his chest rises. She presses her ear against his chest and she can hear his heart beating. He's alive. His fever's broken. _He's_ _alive_. He's sleeping soundly. He's going to be alright. She kisses his chest and cries again, in relief this time.

She told Lavinia she'd let her know as soon as anything changed with Tom's condition. She doesn't.

Instead she gets a fresh ewer of hot water and clean towels and takes them back to Tom's room. She rebuilds the fire in the hearth so he won't get chilled and she takes the damp sheet off his body. She removes his cotton pajama bottoms, leaving him naked on the bed. She immerses a hand towel in the fresh water and starts to wash his beautiful body.

She gently wipes away the dried sweat on his calm, sleeping face. She washes his neck and his chest thoroughly. She rubs the wet cloth over his arms and under them and down his sides. Turning him on his side as best she can, she washes his back and down, smoothing it over his bottom. She lowers him onto his back again and washes his flat belly and his hips. She runs the towel between his legs, she can feel his manhood through the cloth. She washes his strong thighs and knotty calves. She washes his feet, and something she learned in Sunday School long ago runs through her head: "And she arose, and bowed herself on her face to the earth, and said, 'Behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.'"

"I am your servant," she murmurs, drying his damp skin with a clean towel. She slides clean pajamas up his legs and over his hips. "I am your faithful servant," she murmurs, covering him with a clean sheet and blanket. She kisses his forehead and whispers against his skin, "I am your faithful servant."

* * *

The house is still asleep when she leaves Tom's room to check on Lady Cora. She finds Dr. Clarkson in there with Sir Robert and Miss O'Brien. Lady Cora's survived, too. She'll be fine. It's a beautiful morning breaking outside the windows. Her heart is so full.

Tom wakes briefly when Dr. Clarkson is examining him. She leans over Tom, stroking his forehead, and asks, "How are you feeling?"

He can barely keep his eyes open, they fall shut again. "Like I've been hit by a train," he whispers. "Like I've been asleep for days."

"Not so long as that. Your mother's going to be just fine."

He frowns, not opening his eyes. "Was she sick, too?"

"Yes. You've both had Spanish flu."

"I think I was dreaming. I had such dreams."

He falls back to sleep then and Clarkson opines they should let him rest. She just wants to sit beside him and hold his hand. Instead she leaves the room with Clarkson and only now fulfills her promise to Lavinia, waking her with the news that Tom is better and has pulled through. She wakes Matthew with the same news, and the good news about his mother. He pulls himself up, gets himself up on his feet, and hugs her tight.

"Have you been up all night?" he asks her.

"Yes, pretty much."

"You should go to bed, Sybil, get some rest, or you'll make _yourself_ sick. You've been brilliant. Get some rest now."

She'll rest just for a few minutes, but not for too long – she wants to see Tom again as soon as possible. But hours later, she wakes up, disoriented. Did she sleep all day? Is it night? Almost. She slept much longer than she meant to, she slept away this beautiful day. She gets up, freshens up, rearranges her hair, changes into her clean uniform. She walks quickly down the corridor to Tom's room, wiping her clammy palms on her apron.

She wraps on Tom's door but doesn't wait for an answer before opening it and slipping inside. "Hello—"

Lavinia Swire sits beside Tom on his bed, holding his hand in her lap. "Sybil!" Lavinia says happily, smiling. It stops Sybil in her tracks. Lavinia gets up, coming toward her with open arms. Sybil freezes, standing there like a post even as the other woman hugs her. Over Lavinia's shoulder, she can see Tom sitting up against the headboard, watching them placidly. She searches his face for..._something._ But doesn't find it.

Lavinia pulls away but grips her hands, telling her ardently, "I truly believe you saved Tom's life. Thank you. Thank you. How can we ever repay you?"

The dryness in her mouth makes it hard to speak. "I don't-I don't..." She can't swallow. She doesn't know what's happening here.

"We haven't set a date yet for the wedding but when we do, I do hope you'll be able to come, Sybil," Lavinia says. "It would mean so much to us if you were there."

Now she thinks she has the flu. "I didn't...I thought-um..."

She feels dizzy, lightheaded, flushed, delirious. More delirious than Tom was last night. He was out of his mind with fever - he doesn't remember any of what he said, that's clear to her now. And she has this terrible habit of making _assumptions_, letting her imagination run away with her. Good fucking god, she always has to be the most unmitigated _fool!_ _Every bloody time_.

"You've been the greatest friend to our family, Sybil," Tom says.

That word again – she _hates_ the way he says it. It sounds like a lie. Something dark and bitter fills her mouth and she says, "I am your faithful servant."

"No, Sybil," Tom disagrees, shaking his head, continuing, "I think I can speak for everyone when I say we regard you as one of our own now."

"Absolutely," Lavinia agrees. "You're one of us."

No. She _isn't_.

But who is she now? She's shriveling up inside. She's hollow.

She just can't do this anymore.

That evening, she writes out a telegram that she'll send to her mother first thing tomorrow morning, warning her that she's coming back home to Dublin immediately. She spends the rest of the evening packing her suitcase. She won't disappear like a thief in the night – she'll say goodbye to Matthew and Tom and the rest in the morning. But her time in this Limboland is over and it's been a long time coming.

She doesn't have much of a plan beyond tomorrow – all she knows is that she has to get away from Downton. For good. Tom was right – she can't stay here for him. She has to move on. She has to stop living her life waiting for him and live it just for herself again.

* * *

TBC.

* * *

**A/N:** Thanks again for all your lovely comments, they mean the world! I hope you'll continue to hang in there.


	15. A Whirlpool

May 1920, London

"Over one hundred Irishmen are right now wasting away in Wormwood Scrubs, uncharged and untried! Are they to die? They're labeled IRA terrorists by this government and have been arrested, deported, and incarcerated on _suspicion only_, not on proof! Not through the lawful course of due process! The Home Secretary calls their incarceration 'legal' but nothing could be further from the truth!"

The crowd gathered before the dais - at least two thousand people strong, Sybil estimates – erupts with applause and angry shouting, stirred up by Mr. Webber's passionate delivery. She claps with them from her place on the platform behind Mr. Webber, watching their audience, gauging them. She knows it's a partisan crowd, mostly relocated Irishmen and Irishwomen like herself, but she's certain MP Paul Webber could sway even the most immoveable soul and put fire back into the most shriveled of hearts, given half a chance.

"The only recourse these prisoners have, their only bid for liberty, is the hunger-strike, a pragmatic protest against an apathetic, unjust government and the wicked prison authorities who happily subject untried men to diabolical self-torture. With this hunger-strike, they call for nothing less than unconditional release. These men are long enough imprisoned! And they would rather die than submit to tyranny worse than Russia under the Czar!"

Another outburst of applause and even more yelling, whistles of approval splitting the air. She claps harder, too, catching Paul's glance as he prowls the stage like a caged tiger. He's fiery, his dark eyes flashing like lightening, his thick auburn hair wet with sweat and the steadily-falling spring drizzle. But the rain can't cool the hot zeal that lives inside him – not just for his beliefs and politics but for all of life. She hasn't known a man so in love with life since Lt. James Weir. It's infectious.

It infected her almost as soon as she came to work for him. She came to him empty and heart-broken, still reeling from leaving Downton and reeling more from the unexpected illness and quick death of her mother in Dublin. Paul Webber put fire back into her shriveled heart. He moved her soul. He _saw_ her. She was filled up again. Six months ago, she was a second secretary in his office. And now she's standing on stage with him and making sure he doesn't mangle the words she spent so many hours crafting.

"I today call on my fellow members of the Labour Party to organize a commission of inquiry with the recommendation that the Irish demand for self-determination be recognized!"

The crowd roars their approval. She smiles down at them, sharing their feelings entirely. They're not quieting down, their cheers growing, their eyes glued to the charismatic man egging them on.

Then her gaze lands on the one figure in the crowd who _isn't_ watching Paul Webber. He's watching _her_. Staring at her. She looks away from the figure for a moment, but when she looks back he's still staring straight at her.

His stillness and his stare and his bareheadedness make him stick out in the crowd. His intense blue eyes and his dark blonde hair and his fine mouth and his sweetly handsome face make him impossible not to recognize.

"Recognized either by according the country dominion home rule or by charging a constituent assembly, representative of all Irish people, with the task of drawing up an Irish constitution. This is the only way to end these hunger-strikes! This is the only way to avoid intensification of violence in Ireland! This is the only way to ensure we are not _creating_ IRA terrorists out of wrongly-imprisoned men!"

The audience is thunderous but she hardly hears them. She can't take her eyes off the figure still staring at her from below. She hasn't seen him in more than a year. And now he's standing out in a sea of thousands, a needle in a haystack, a bad penny. The one man who can - if she lets him, if she's so foolish as to let him into her heart again - empty her out and break her, devour her and leave her a shell again.

Tom Crawley.

What the hell is he doing here?

* * *

After the rally, she stands on the edge of the grass, waiting for Paul. He'll be a little while yet – he's still surrounded by people who want to shake hands or share their stories with one of the few MPs who has their backs. Maybe they just want to touch him, be in his orbit. He tends to have that effect on people.

It doesn't take long for her to be found.

"Miss Branson," he says in that voice that never leaves her.

She pretends to be surprised, whirling around to face him. "Mr. Crawley! Good lord! Why, whatever are you doing here?" He frowns a little, confused. Hadn't she seen him from the dais? Well, let him be confused, blast him! _She's_ confused. Why is he _here_? Why can't she be rid of him?

"I-I came for the rally. I came to see—"

"I didn't know you took an interest in Irish political prisoners."

"Well I do, sure, but I actually came to see _you_."

Damn him damn him damn him. "But how did you know I'd be here?"

"I heard you were working for Minister Webber, as his speech writer."

"But how—"

"-And I have to tell you, Sybil," and here he grabs her hand, clutching it between both of his as he continues, low and serious, his big eyes fervent, "I've never been so proud of anyone or anything in my whole life as I am of you today."

She hates him. To hell with him! She wants to rip her hand free and clout him bloody and run away. She's roiling inside, fit to burst, she-

"Ah, Sybil, there you are!" Paul Webber calls out, frightening her. He's striding towards them, Mr. Munro trailing behind. Paul's smile is bright and cheery and fixed but she knows it doesn't escape him that Tom is holding her hand. She pulls her hand free.

"Minister Webber, let me introduce you to my-my old friend Mr. Crawley," she manages to string together, trying to collect herself. The two men regard each other, squaring up as they grip hands and shake vigorously.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Crawley."

"Likewise."

She can see how white their knuckles are, their grips tight, their arms like train pistons. "And this is Mr. Munro, the Minister's chief political advisor."

"Mr. Munro," Tom greets, shaking Munro's hand, too, but paying little attention to him. "Minister, that was a ripping good speech just now."

"Thank you."

"I could definitely hear Miss Branson's voice in there. It sounded just like her."

Paul steps a little closer to Sybil's side, commenting, "You must know her very well, then, Mr. Crawley."

"Yes, Minister. We used to talk politics together all the time. In the old days."

"So you're political too?"

"I love politics," Tom confirms. "I have a real passion for them."

Paul steps just a little closer still. "As do I. Well..._obviously_!"

They laugh but an awkward silence quickly falls, the air crackling between the two men. It makes her twitchy and annoyed. She catches the way Munro quirks his eyebrows, turning away to hide some secret smile. He's an ass.

She claps her hands together loudly, needing this to be over. "We should really be getting back to the office, don't you think, Mr. Webber?" she asks, looking at her watch.

"And I'm actually going to be late for a business meeting," Tom says. She instantly remembers an ancient conversation between them. In his room early one morning. And where that conversation led. To her sitting on his lap. With force she pushes away the memory. "Minister, perhaps we could all meet up for a pint later? Catch up some and get to know each other better, talk politics?"

Awkwardness and alpha males and alcohol never mix well. She stays silent, hoping Paul will put him off. Instead he says happily, "Absolutely! Yes, brilliant. The Red Lion on Parliament – you know where that is?"

"I'll meet you there after six. Until then, Mr. Webber, Mr. Munro. Sybil."

She turns away sharply and feels Paul's hand come up to lightly touch her back, leading her away, leading her away from Tom. Paul's hand stays there. Where Tom can surely see it, if he's watching. He probably is.

_Good_.

She doesn't look back at him. She faces forward. Walks forward. No looking back. She's been practicing that move for a year.

* * *

The Red Lion is a politico pub, to the hilt. Everybody at Westminster comes through here at some point; Paul was playing darts with the Prime Minster in here just last week. This is where the _real_ work of government gets done, more often than not. Most nights, Gwen Dawson comes here with Sybil and they have drinks with their friends before going back to their shared flat, but Gwen's out of town tonight. Sybil feels at ease here, oddly enough, surrounded by men and talking politics. They didn't all welcome her with open arms, of course, and there are enough who still don't, but she's proved herself the last few months. She's one of them. She's right where she belongs.

So to have Tom Crawley suddenly dragging a chair over to their table and sitting down beside her while she's in the middle of a conversation about the League of Nations with the Assistant Deputy to the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs feels a bit like... Well, she imagines it feels rather like being the Earl of Downton and having a second housemaid suddenly sit down at your dining room table in the middle of dinner. He's overturning her world order. She wants him out.

She sits there silently while he introduces himself to her friends. He says hello with Paul and Munro, greeting them with those overly-muscular handshakes again. Someone recognizes he's the son of the Earl of Grantham and tells Tom he has to buy the next round because he's rich and they're all working stiffs. Tom just shrugs and gets up again, coming back soon with a tray full of glasses, a bottle of the best scotch whisky on the shelf, and plenty of bottles of lagers. He's an instant hero.

"And a cider for you," he says, setting it down in front of her. "I know you prefer cider."

She pushes it aside. "I _prefer_ whisky," she says, reaching across the table and pouring herself a double shot. She downs it in one and doesn't show how it still burns like hell. She doesn't like the way he's looking at her. "I trust your business meeting went well today," she says tartly.

"It did. Do you want to know what it was about?"

"No. It's none of my business, Mr. Crawley."

"It was about my automobile dealership." She looks up sharply, surprised. "It's a month from opening. In Knightsbridge."

A big smile wants to spread across her face but she won't let it. "That's wonderful, Mr. Crawley."

"Why won't you call me Tom?"

"Truly, I'm pleased for you. It's what you've always wanted."

"And this," he says, gesturing around them. "This! And the rally today. This is what you've always wanted."

"More than _anything_," she says with meaning.

He pauses, picking up that meaning. "My god I couldn't be happier for you, Sybil. And I meant what I said earlier, at the park. I meant it with all my heart."

She wishes he'd just shut up. She looks away becausehe has this eager, puppyish expression on his face, like he wants to say a thousand other things to her. She wants to hear none of it. She turns back to her friend the Assistant Deputy to the Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs and picks up their conversation where they left it, ignoring Tom Crawley, ignoring the way his presence feels like a whirlpool trying to suck her in.

* * *

The drinking goes on and on. Her snub of Tom goes on just as long. He doesn't take the hint and leave, he just makes friends with everyone in that easy way he has and keeps up in every one of their political conversations because he's sneakily brilliant. Fuck him.

A band comes in later, just a squeezebox and a fiddle crammed into the corner by the fireplace. A little space is cleared for dancing and Sybil takes the escape route, hauling Paul Webber to his feet and making him dance a waltz with her. She clutches the back of Paul's collar and leans against him. She knows Tom is watching them.

"Your friend Tom's really ingratiated himself, hasn't he?"

"He's a peach."

"You worked for him for a long time, didn't you, at the convalescent hospital. I'm a dolt for forgetting, then someone mentioned Downton Abbey and I could've smacked myself. He wrote you a glowing letter of reference, I remember that. _Glowing_. _Effulgent!_"

"He's a pal, alright. So, Minister, when are you going to stop talking about Tom Crawley and kiss me?"

Paul grins down at her, wolfish, and says, "_Later_."

"Why not now?"

His grin turns into something frustratingly patronizing. "Not here, dear. Not in front of everyone."

She pouts, annoyed. And then Paul's trying to pull away, saying, "Oh, look who just came in, it's Morrison. I need to talk to him about the committee's next meeting."

The music changes to something darker, more Latin. A tango even though no one here knows how to tango. She tightens her grip on his collar. "Just one more dance." He sighs, frustrated, looking at Morrison and not at her. She swears he'd work in his sleep if he could. He probably does, actually, dreaming up new ways to change the world. "Paul."

"May I cut in?" some bastard says behind her.

Her stomach sinks to her shoes. "No," she says just as Paul says, "Be my guest, Mr. Crawley," and cleverly turns her into Tom's waiting arms. She stands still, glaring at Paul as he weaves through the room toward Morrison.

She wriggles, trying to break free of Tom's hold. "Let go."

But he won't, lacing his fingers with hers, his other hand sliding around her waist to pin her to his hip. Too close, too intimate. His evening stubble brushes her cheek. "Not so fast. I've been waiting to dance with you for six years."

She leans back as far as she can, glowering at him icy hard. "How's your _wife_, Mr. Crawley, how's Lavinia?"

His feet stop briefly, then he moves again, making her shuffle along with him to keep her balance. "Sybil, we aren't married."

"You _still_ haven't set a date? It's been forever—"

"No, no, we aren't _getting_ married. We broke off the engagement."

She stops moving. Her feet feel like lead weights. Her arms feel limp. He's leaning into her, leaning over her. She watches his throat move as he swallows. She breathes him in.

"Do you know why?" he murmurs.

Her whole body spasms, jerking and tearing away from him. She slams her hands into his chest and pushes him away. She rushes away from him, pushing through all the bodies in front of her, and swoops by their table to grab her handbag and hat. She barely stops, rushing for the door and out into the night. There's an Underground station around the corner, she blindly heads for it, her only thought being to get away, get away, get away _now_.

She turns into the first platform she comes to, hearing a train squealing to a stop – it's not the right train, not the one to take her toward her flat, but she hops aboard anyway, just to get away. All she needs to do is get away and she'll be okay, she won't ever have to see him again. He won't get the chance to wheedle his way inside her again and root around 'til there's nothing left but a brokenhearted fool. She sits down as the doors close. She's safe when the train pulls away.

* * *

TBC.


	16. The Sheik

She washes her hair in the sink and then sits before the coal fireplace on a cushion in her loose cotton nightgown, drying her hair while she smokes a cigarette and has a small scotch. Neither she nor Gwen smoke that often but they keep some in the flat for guests; she just felt like she needed one tonight, and another drink to calm her nerves. She rubs the back of her hair – it feels dry so she turns around to face the fire and warm her feet. Her hair dries so much faster cut short like this, and she wishes she'd gotten it bobbed ages ago.

She's glad Gwen is away until Sunday, visiting relatives in Scotland, because Sybil didn't want any interrogation about the melodramatic way she burst into the flat an hour ago, in tears and throwing herself onto the sofa. It was embarrassing enough – and she was alone. It was just...an expulsion of tension, like a release valve being opened. It didn't mean anything more. She's calm now. She feels like herself again. It was stupid to run away, childish and weak, an old habit. She makes money using her words now – and she just scurried off like a frightened housemaid. She flicks the rest of the cigarette into the fire, annoyed with herself. It will probably just encourage him, goddammit.

She rests her head on her bent knees, watching the dancing flames. They lull her into an almost-doze. But a knock on the front door startles her. She pushes herself up off the cushion, sets her glass on the mantle. It's Paul, likely come to see why she disappeared so suddenly. God knows what she'll tell him. "Who is it?" she calls, going to the door.

"It's me."

She opens the door for him. And finds the wrong "me" there. "No," she says immediately, closing the door in Tom Crawley's face. Dammit!

"Sybil." He knocks again. "Sybil, please open the door." His voice is close, his face probably pressed to the crack. "Please can I to talk to you?"

"No," she says through the door. "Go away."

"Sybil, _please_. Can I just say what I have to say and then I'll go and if you never want to see me again, you won't, I'll never bother you again. Just let me speak my piece first? I'm begging."

She twists her fingers together, not sure what to do. Why should she let him speak his piece? She doesn't owe him anything. She has more of a piece to speak than he does, surely.

"I haven't been honest with you, Sybil."

What? _Bastard._ She yanks the door open. "_What?_" she snaps, furious. "So you are married."

"No! No, no, no." He takes the opening and pushes through the door, pushes right past her into the lounge. "We called off the engagement before Christmas. It's over. I was honest about that."

She's still standing by the open door, her hand on the knob. She can't throw him out bodily so she closes the door, leaning against it, ready to show him the door as soon as he says whatever it is he feels he needs to say. "What, then?" she demands. He's pacing the small space, seemingly filling it, and looking at her, looking her up and down. She forgot to put on her dressing gown. She crosses her arms over her chest. "Speak, Mr. Crawley. And then please leave me alone."

"I love you. I love you."

She winces. "Don't say that." She digs her nails into her arms and shakes her head, refusing to believe it.

"It's true. The truth is I love you, Sybil." He comes toward her and she presses herself against the door, shaking her head, shaking her head, staring at her bare feet. His shoes come to a stop a few inches from her toes. "_Yes_. I always have, I always will, I've never stopped."

Her throat hurts. "Are you done, will you go?" she asks, not looking up.

Apparently he's not. "When Dr. Clarkson told me you wanted to come to Downton hospital, I should've told him no. But I didn't. I wanted you there again even though I was engaged. Despite it. That was dishonest. And I asked you to stay on even though I knew how you felt. I couldn't return it, but that's what I wanted, I wanted you near me even still. I was lying every day I was engaged to Lavinia Swire. It was dishonorable and dishonest. And I was dishonest when I said we were friends."

"We're not friends," she agrees readily.

"We _can't_ be friends. Not _just_ friends, anyway."

He leans against the door beside her and she bolts away, crossing the room, getting as far from him as possible. She's so furious with him. "So now that _you're_ free, you don't want to be 'just friends'. I see. Well now _I'm_ not free. Paul Webber, he's my beau."

"I noticed that."

"So if I say now I'd like to be 'just friends' you wouldn't be alright with that. What's acceptable for me to endure wouldn't be acceptable for you, would it? That's _not fair,_" she snaps, pounding her foot on the rug in emphasis.

"I know. I know."

She stares at him helplessly, silently imploring for a better answer than that. "You're not being fair, Tom! You show up in my life, at my rally, at my local, _at my bloody home_ after a year, after treating me like a toy the whole year before that, showing up here to seduce me and I'm supposed to fall at your feet and praise my luck?"

"No! That's not what—"

"I've been a fool over you so many bloody times! Paul doesn't make me feel like a fool! Paul doesn't constantly throw my life into total upheaval. He doesn't play me about. He doesn't _devour_ everything I am-"

"I don't want to devour you!" he shouts, storming towards her, cornering her against the sofa. She straightens her spine, not backing away. "I'm not playing you about, I just want to love you! I want to love you just the way you are."

"I already have that! With Paul."

"You could have it with _me_! Bet on _me_! Please, Sybil."

He raises his hands to her face, as though to grab it, but she jerks her head away, away from his grasp. Instead he rests his hands on her shoulders and they scald her bare skin.

"Darling girl, you're my _best_ friend. You're my best friend in all the world. I can't talk with anyone like I can with you. I can't be myself with anyone but you. You know every inch of me, inside and out." He runs his palms down her arms, ever so lightly, and back up, skin rasping skin. "But I would rather lose my best friend than lie one more day and pretend I don't love you and need you more than life itself. I would rather lose my best friend than see you marry anyone but me."

She hates him. She _hates_ him. How dare he say these things to her after she lived in his house for a _year_ with the knowledge he was marrying someone else! His fingers brush her neck. She's seething inside. She's breathing hard and too aware of her breasts rubbing against her cotton gown. She's almost naked before him. Almost. It wouldn't take much.

"So that's what I came here to say," he says. "I'll go now."

He steps away from her. Hot air rushes up her nightgown. She's shivering. She wants to kill him. He backs away, the floor squeaking under his shoes. She stares into the fireplace. She hates him so much it feels like the fire's in her veins. He's at the door. He's going to leave. She never should've let him in here.

She's heard it said the opposite of love isn't _hate_ – it's indifference, the absence of any feeling at all.

The problem is she _feels_ too much. She _feels_ the tips of her breasts tingling painfully; she _feels_ her anger sitting heavy and hot and low in her belly; she _feels_ the ache between her legs. She's anything but indifferent. She's never been indifferent toward him a day in her life.

She looks at him standing at the door. Her pride and her foolishness will never allow her to see him again if he leaves right now. She'll never see him again. She hates him. "Kiss me before you go," she demands quietly.

His steps thunder across the floorboards and he grabs her up in his arms and crushes her body against him. His hand slides into her short hair, tipping her head back to receive his mouth.

"I'll never kiss you again," she promises, to be cruel.

He kisses her. Warm and soft. And natural. Shaded with indecency, too demanding to be sweet. Laced with deep promise and..._completion_. Just the same as ever. She mewls in anger and frustration. He's the cruel one.

"Do you let your _beau_ kiss you, Sybil?" he breathes.

"Yes."

He sucks on her lip and she opens her mouth. She drinks whisky from his tongue. He grips her skull, bending her mouth to his will.

"Does your man kiss you like this, Sybil?" he growls into her mouth.

Her answer is the gasping, hungry, wet sound their mouths make as they come together again, delving rooting devouring. They devour each other. She wants to devour him. They don't stop. She doesn't want to. Her want is fire. His clothes are thick and rough against her skin and through the thin cotton of her gown.

He breathes hard against her cheek. "I should go now. Or I won't know how to stop."

"I don't want to stop."

Her admission is quietly revolutionary, slipping from her mouth like a ballot slips from fingers into the box. And, just as after a ballot is cast, the eventual outcome seems entirely uncertain, _everything_ risked in this moment. She's terrified. She shouldn't have said it. He was right to say she knows him inside and out because she understands perfectly why he was dishonest and dishonest and dishonest – because it's just so much easier than..._this_. His face is a war between confusion and hope and uncertainty, studying her own face and seeing the same things. They're the same.

He seems on the cusp of asking her something stupid and condescending like _Do you know what you're saying?_ She shuts him up and casts her future with one more word: "Stay."

His eyes grow heavy-lidded. His tongue wets his lips. His arms snake around her and he leans in. Not like this, not yet. She slips out of his arms, slides against his body, slithering around him. He reaches for her, more confused. His fingers catch her gown. "Sybil—"

"_Stay_."

She sweeps out of the room, down the hall and into her narrow bedroom. She doesn't hear him follow and she doesn't hear him leave. He stayed. She crouches, her hands shaking as she digs for what she needs in bottom drawer of her cupboard. Her thighs are shaking.

He turns when she comes back into the lounge. He's removed his jacket, tossed it across the back of a chair, removed his tie and shoes and socks. He's barefoot on their worn rug. She stands before him and watches as he unbuttons his waistcoat and removes it, tosses it on the chair. He watches her watching him as he pulls the leather braces off his broad shoulders and lets them hang from his waist. He starts to unbutton his shirt and she sees the strong, smooth, sloped curves of his chest, brushed between a little with dark hair.

She hides the thing from her cupboard in her palm and slides down the wide straps of her nightgown, slowly. A little shimmy and the nightgown falls off her body, billowing to a white cloud around her feet. She's naked and unashamed in front of him. Undisguised. She can hear his fast, ragged breathing. His stare memorizes and absorbs her body. The fire reflects off her skin and burns in his dark eyes.

She holds out her palm, shows him what's in it. A little tin case, no bigger than a tea biscuit, a drawing of a sheik riding a camel printed on its label. She shows him what's nestled inside - three round rubber discs, thin as skin. His eyes snap to hers, his stare taking hold of her sex, palpable as touch.

"The newest thing, imported from America. It's called latex," she says. "We don't stop," she tells him.

* * *

TBC.


	17. Under Me You Quite So New

**A/N:** For those who need warnings, this chapter is rated M.

* * *

His fine, strong body is a golden field to her eyes and she longs to work it with her mouth and her tongue and teeth and hands but he has other plans so she will have to wait.

Supine on the floor before the fire, cushion tucked beneath her head, he's above and grazing on her, his wet and eager mouth foraging on her flesh. His talented lap rubs and roils against her side, a preview of what's to come, and a girder grows against her hip. Her breasts feel soft enough for his white teeth to sink through and her sex feels like springtime, wet enough to soak this worn, flower-strewn rug. His fingers and palms, calloused from the labor of warring years, not gentleman's hands anymore, make her bounce and cry out when he grasps her breast, grasps her cunt, and she pulses like the sun.

He leans up on one elbow and admires his work, sucking his glistening fingers while she lays there for a moment like a simple sense organ. "You're so fucking beautiful," he whispers, his eyes dark pools, his rough admiration bluntly thrilling. She scratches her nails over his hot neck and rolls into him, kissing him, rubbing breasts to his, crotch to his, ready.

He reaches for the little tin box above her head and she hears the cover roll away to some dark corner. His tongue tastes like her when she sucks on it, the intimacy shocking and delicious and distracting her from the very practical task he performs below.

Prepared, he presses her back to the floor again and parts her legs, stroking her thighs, his palm rasping loudly, before easing his body between them. His cock, smooth and hot, waits on her belly. He studies her face, strokes her lips and cheek with his thumb. "I'll not hurt you," he promises softly.

She curls her hand around his wrist. "Tom," she whispers, feeling a pang of guilt. Has she been dishonest with him, too? "I'm not a virgin."

Something ripples over his face and his body tightens atop her. "Your beau?"

She shakes her head. "No. Not him." She's vaguely aware Paul Webber can no longer be called her beau. "A boy during the war. In France. He was American."

"Did you love him?"

"Did you love any of the girls you bedded on sheets I changed each morning?" she answers back hotly, not letting him get away with that.

"No, never. I fucked them and I loved you," he answers simply and pulls his wrist from her hold. He grabs her hips tight, pushing his cock inside her fully and swiftly, stretching and filling her and making her swear and gasp and groan and plow furrows into the columns of his back. "Did you love your American boy?" She slides her calves over his round ass, tugging him, urging him to move, her immediate needs aching for his most natural gifts. "Did you love him, Sybil?" he insists again.

"_Tom_," she groans, ignoring his silly question, kissing his sweaty neck. He sucks hard on her nipples, lapping at them like a thirsty animal. She writhes and jerks, begging with feral noise, but he holds still inside and holds her still. She relents, promising breathlessly, "I've never loved anyone but you." His muscles so tense under her hands now melt. That's all he wanted, she hadn't said it yet to him – not to his knowledge, anyway. He's radiant above her. "I only love you, I love you, I love you so much..." She can't stop saying it.

After that it's rough, driving pandemonium and the disarray of voiceless worship, pure phenomenalism. They storm and fold and thump and pour and sweat together on a threadbare flowerbed, trembling and stumbling toward the senseless horizon, tracing out the twisting zig-zag journey of seven long, complicated years.

* * *

She loves the way their hips sound slapping together.

She loves the way his skin glows like honey in firelight.

She loves the way she's marked him and him her.

She loves the way his mouth treats her cunny like a delicate petunia.

She loves being on top.

She loves having him from behind, too.

She loves his hands everywhere.

She loves kissing everything.

She loves how they rapidly empty the little tin box of its three inhabitants and still want more.

She loves how he's impatiently rubbing her while she bends over her cupboard digging out more. She loves the stunned, hilarious look on his face when he sees the packing carton _full_ of little tin boxes hidden in her cupboard. "Should I be concerned?" he asks.

"You should be encouraged," she says wickedly. He rakes his hands through the hundreds of little tin boxes. "My women's club hands them out to women in the slums and women in reduced circumstances," she finally explains, surely relieving him.

"Oh." He scoops up two massive big handfuls of tins and gives them to her. She can barely hold them all, they spill from her arms. "There, those should last us for tonight, anyway," he says, and she nearly pees herself laughing.

She loves the way he says, later on, catching his breath again, that the best way to start undermining the aristocratic hierarchy is to marry a revolutionary socialist suffragette-cum-Labour Party speechwriter into its ranks – bring change from the inside out. She agrees.

She loves waking up on the lounge floor at midday, thankfully Saturday, raw and tender, unsure when her featherbed and duvet made their way in here, with Tom clung around her and drooling on her breast.

She loves the way she feels home.

She loves what her name will soon become: Sybil Crawley. It sounds rather perfect.

* * *

The end.


	18. Epilogue

December 1920

There's a soft knock on the door of her room – and she can't help but still consider the governess room hers, even though it's a misnomer to call any room at Downton "hers". The door opens and she's in the middle of scribbling down a sentence so doesn't look up from her notebook as she says, "Oh, Anna, I'm so sorry, I don't need anything but thank you for looking in on me."

She hears the door click shut. "Shame, because you have something _I_ need." She looks up from her papers to find Tom standing at the end of the bed in his flannel robe. He grins, adding, "Desperately."

She keeps writing, telling him tartly, "You shouldn't be in here."

"Don't worry, I've been sneaking into the governess's room since I was fourteen."

She snorts. Fiction! He said the same thing about sneaking up to the maids' corridor, but Gwen Dawson told her long ago he'd never risk it for mortal fear of Mrs. Hughes. She suspects the rule holds true for the governess's chamber, too. "It's _inappropriate_, sir-"

"Oh good lord you're funny."

"-Until we're _married_. Downton isn't London, Tom, and we're not in my flat or yours. What would your family say?"

"Who gives a toss?" he asks, untying his robe, shrugging out of it. Naturally he's naked underneath. Not even the sense enough to wear pajamas in the middle of December!

"I do," she answers. She forgets what she was just about to write in her book, watching him lean over the fireplace to stoke the fire.

"Since when?"

She snaps her notebook closed. "Since _always_. Don't be glib. I'm a guest in their home."

He straightens up, dusting his hands on his bare thighs. "Ah. Now I get it."

"What?"

He prowls over to his side of her bed, pulling back the bedclothes. "Why you've been acting so strangely since we arrived."

She sets her pen and notebook aside on the nightstand. "I have not."

He sighs heavily, saying as he slides into bed next to her, "Bloody hell, woman, you're not a _guest_, you're my fiancée." He mimics her pose, leaning back on the headboard. "You haven't been yourself with them, darling girl. You've been pussyfooting around mother and father and granny and Aunt Rosamund and Lavinia, even Matthew, like you're still the second housemaid or the head nurse. You hardly said a word at dinner when father was going on about the Black and Tans and Bloody Sunday as though he knew what the hell he was talking about."

"Every politician in the history of forever has known the people you must be the _most_ diplomatic towards are in-laws. Especially prospective ones. I was trying not to make waves."

"You like making waves. You get paid to make waves."

He's so infuriatingly contrary sometimes. "Alright, so I was biting holes through my tongue at dinner. Yes, I could easily talk of nothing but Ireland all week, but I don't want to wear everyone out. I was trying to make things easier for you, Tom!"

"My god, but you don't have to! You could walk around this house wearing nothing but a sandwich board, handing out rubbers to everyone and recruiting the staff into Sinn Fein, and I would be traipsing right behind you quoting Michael Collins and demonstrating proper prophylactic application. Don't disappoint me, Sybil, not now that we're back here."

She frowns. "That's rather harsh, isn't it? I mean, Jesus, do you have any idea how..._discombobulating_ it is—"

"Discombobulating?" he repeats, grinning.

"-_Disconcerting_ it is being back without having some job to do here? I'm out of place at every turn. I went downstairs after dinner to say hello and they all stood up like I was the Queen of bloody Sheba. It was bizarre. They didn't say anything rude, but I swear they were looking at me like I was some kind of traitor. I crossed the Rubicon for them."

He picks up her hand and kisses her fingers. "I know it's hard—"

"Do you?"

"You should've seen the looks the lads used to give me whenever I turned up in the garage in my coveralls. They couldn't say anything to me, either, me being the boss. But I knew what they all thought of me – a toss playing at being a workingman, dressing up like them to fit in. But I just went about being myself and rebuilding engines like I've been doing it all my life, because I have, and they soon got over their snobberies. You've just got to be _you_ the best way you know how. That's all that matters, my own true love."

It's so easy to love him. And he seems to find it easy to love her, so why is she getting herself all twisted up about everyone else? Why couldn't it have always been this easy, all those years, instead of chasing each other around on a rollercoaster? It was all so _hard_ before.

She sighs, rolling into him, and he kisses her firmly. "Is this your elaborate way of coercing me into having illicit relations with you?" She rubs her hands over his chest, up, rubs his shoulders and neck as she kisses his skin.

"If you want to make a political statement by exhibiting your liberated views on sexuality, I won't stop you," he promises.

"How progressive."

She shifts herself on top of him, straddling his lap. He pulls her nightgown up, pulls it over her head, tosses it away. They touch each other, sweet and slow and easy, building something together, building a fire in their bed. This is the easy part.

* * *

"I know I'm no substitute for your mother, dear, God rest her," Lady Cora begins as she deals out the next bridge hand. "But I do hope you'll look upon me as the next best thing."

"I do," Lavinia answers earnestly. "And I'm very honored to do so."

"So you'd ask, wouldn't you? If there was anything you wanted me to tell you," Lady Cora says leadingly, with meaning. Well, well. Sybil smiles to herself, suddenly far more interested in studying the embarrassed flush on Lady Cora's face, the Dowager's raised eyebrow, and the blank look of non-comprehension on Lavinia's face than she is in studying her hand of cards. "About what to expect on your wedding night," Cora clarifies for Lavinia's benefit.

"Oh I see!"

"I mean, I'm sure you must know...something. Yes?"

"Cora, dear, you'll shock Sybil," the Dowager intercedes, likely hoping to end this line of conversation before it goes any further.

It makes Sybil laugh out loud. "I think she's shocked Lavinia more than I, Lady Grantham." It's them who'd be shocked if they knew how very well-versed she already is in the marital arts. If they only knew what she and Tom had been up to just a few hours ago, in fact, before they came down to dinner...

"I just mean that I feel like I wasn't sufficiently briefed before my wedding night, and I hope you can avoid a similar...awkwardness, dear," Cora tells Lavinia.

"Thank you," Lavinia answers vaguely, intently rearranging her hand of cards, her own face red now. It seems unlikely she'll be asking Cora for the gory details around the card table. Shame. That would've made this card game far, far more interesting. "It's so strange to realize that by this time tomorrow, I'll be a married woman! And then it will be your turn, Sybil, soon enough! And then, God willing, soon enough after that we'll have a pair of little baby cousins crawling about the house together. A little Matthew and a little Tom, perhaps. Wouldn't that be wonderful!"

Now Sybil's the one raising her eyebrow. "You wouldn't like to wait a little while before trying for a baby?" she asks Lavinia.

"Wait? Why would she wait?" Lady Grantham demands.

"To enjoy being married for a while, to have time to just enjoy each other. When two people love each other, everything...is the most terrific fun, y'see."

The Dowager gasps, quite hilariously. Now she's shocked them, but frankly, she's just being _honest_, isn't she.

"And there are plenty of ways to maintain that enjoyment but not yet start a family, delay it until one is really ready. Family planning, they call it. Birth control."

The look on the Dowager's face, even Cora and Lavinia's faces – you'd think she'd just told them she's currently wearing a cervical cap.

"That's what Tom and I are doing – _will_ do, that is, _will_ do," she hastily corrects, with transparency. "Because we're both still so young, and just starting out in the world, really. Still building our careers."

"Careers," the Dowager echoes, like the word is a dead squirrel.

"I do want to have children, certainly. I want to give Tom the most beautiful children someday. He would be the most wonderful and tender and fiercely protective father. I dearly want that, but I'm not ready. Do you think the men I work for will allow me to keep my job once I get pregnant? Even if they did, say, they certainly won't give me leave to attend to my maternity duties and let me come back to work, they'll just sack me. It's not right, it's completely unfair! But that's the way it is right now. And one might say it could change once all women of age have the vote, but even I can admit that's probably just wishful thinking. But it's something to strive for, isn't it? I've only just gotten to a place where I can affect real change in the larger world and I won't quit that yet."

"Nor should you, darling girl," she hears Tom say behind her. She turns in her seat, startled, and looks. He stands by the fireplace with his father and brother; they must've just come in to join the ladies, just in time to hear her speechifying.

Said ladies are now staring at her, silent and their cards forgotten.

"Well," the Dowager begins, crisply breaking the silence. "I feel like I've just been standing at Speakers' Corner!"

But Sybil pays no attention to her soon-to-be granny-in-law, her focus only on her soon-to-be husband and his huge shining blue eyes, shining just for her, shining with pride and hard-earned love. Maybe it was necessary for everything to be so difficult between them for all those long years, the daily sacrifices on the altars of pride and confusion and anger and denial and youth and foolishness necessary in order to get to this very point, in order to become true equals and partners, in order to build separately a future worth having together.

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. And thank you for commenting!


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